EE is on the verge of renewing its lead partner sponsorship with England’s Football Association from the 2024-25 season onward, according to two sources close to the negotiations.
SportBusiness understands the UK-based telco will agree a multi-season extension to its previous five-season deal, which ran from 2019-20 to 2023-24.
One source says the agreement was thrashed out earlier this year, well before England’s appearance at Uefa Euro 2024 in Germany, where the men’s national team reached the final for the second consecutive tournament.
It is unclear whether EE will also renew its lead partner deals with the football associations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. These were signed individually with each association, also for the period from 2019-20 to 2023-24.
The telco’s current deal with the FA includes lead partner rights to the men’s and women’s national teams, all age group teams and main partner rights to ‘Wembley, connected by EE’, as well as lead partner rights at the St George’s Park elite training hub. Under the national team component of the deal, EE gets branding rights on the front and sleeve of the national teams’ training kit.
It is understood the new agreement has been renewed at a significant premium on the previous deal based partly on the success of the men’s and women’s teams since the last deal, but also the importance of the FA relationship to the EE brand.
The previous deal was signed by EE’s then parent brand BT, which was initially the lead brand on the national team kit. From April 2022, under a radical overhaul of the legacy business, the EE brand became the primary consumer brand, taking over the kit branding positions from BT, which became the flagship business brand.
SportBusiness understands that support for the sponsorship comes from the very top of the telco’s organisation with full backing from Marc Allera, chief executive of EE and consumer division at BT Group.
In the last cycle, EE focused especially on grassroots football, women’s football and disability football, with Allera aiming to embed EE technology in football clubs across the UK. Meanwhile, Wembley Stadium has become a major showcase for EE’s 5G capabilities. Last year, EE’s then head of sponsorship, Matt Stevenson, told SportBusiness Sponsorship that the stadium was “almost a physical embodiment of the network”.
The EE extension completes a successful six months for the FA, with an extension agreed with the airline Emirates for its title sponsorship of the FA Cup and a major new global deal with digital bank Chase.
These deals are thought to have been made under the tenure of Stephen Hutchison, the former head of commercial partnerships at the FA. His position has been filled since July by interim head of partnerships Nicola Rutledge.
The FA was contacted for this article, but declined to comment.
The next England men’s senior team’s match is away against Republic of Ireland in the Nations League on September 7. The next England women’s match is a friendly at Wembley against Germany on October 25.