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Manchester United may have found a new shirt sponsor, after a video surfaced showing a new away kit with ‘Visit South Africa’ on the front.
Video surfaced on Twitter yesterday, with Themba Khumalo, CEO of South African Tourism, unboxing the kit.
He has since been verified by Football Insider and South African journalist Timmy T Maranda.
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A verified video confirms that #mufc sent ‘South African Tourism’ a proposal to sponsor their shirts. The package was received by its CEO, Themba Khumalo. pic.twitter.com/ZsMcz5E4Xs
— UtdChronicles (@UtdChronicIes) February 5, 2023
Visit South Africa recently agreed a sleeve sponsorship deal with Tottenham Hotspur, worth £42.5 million over the next three years.
How much the proposal with United would be worth is unknown, although as a front sponsorship with a club of that size, it would obviously be considerably more than that.
The Red Devils are looking for a new jersey sponsor, having bought back the rights after the deal with TeamViewer left the company unhappy with the return on investment.
That deal was worth around £47.5 million a year.
Other tourism boards have shown interest in becoming United’s new front-of-shirt sponsor, and preliminary talks with Visit Saudi were held in early January.
However, with other Gulf states, particularly as far as Qatari investors are concerned, interested in buying Manchester United from the Glazers in the coming months, such a deal would be unlikely.
Qatar, for example, would naturally be reluctant to promote a rival nation’s tourism board.
Another option, as The Peoples Person reported last month, would be for United to seek a triple deal that would allow sponsorship of the front of the shirt and the right to name both Old Trafford and Carrington.
Business expert and head of sports services at JMW Solicitors in London Ben Peppi believes such a deal would be of great interest to new investors and would likely be worth more than £100m a year.
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