Chelsea ‘testing the market’ for new shirt sponsor — report

Five years. £200 million. At the time, it was the second biggest shirt sponsorship deal in the Premier League. Since then, Manchester City have jumped ahead, while Arsenal, Liverpool, and Spurs have all caught up. Manchester United remain well ahead of everybody. Thusly, there is room for improvement in Chelsea’s £40m-per-year shirt sponsorship deal with Yokohama Tyres, which is set to expire at the end of the season.

(These don’t include sleeve sponsors — Hyundai paying £6m to Chelsea, for example — or training kit sponsors — Carabao paying £10m annually ... or maybe not anymore?)

In a report from Simon Johnson from the Evening Standard The Athletic (via the Mail), Chelsea are “testing the market” and looking for the aforementioned improvement. There is apparently at least “one unnamed company” in the picture, though discussions remain open with Yokohama as well as Chelsea look to create a bit of a bidding war between the potential suitors.

When Yokohama took over from Samsung in 2015, they more than doubled the income Chelsea were receiving from the deal, from £18m to £40m. We probably shouldn’t expect similar improvement this time around, but perhaps a slight bump back up into clear second place at least would not go amiss.