Aston Villa are on a roll in the commercial department and their latest deal is yet another triumph.
Unai Emery’s side will play lucrative Champions League football next season and that has strengthened the club’s hand when it comes to striking sponsorship deals.
Their new technical partnership with Adidas and front-of-shirt deal with Betano are believed to be worth £20m-a-year each, a huge upswing on Villa‘s previous arrangements.
And they have now announced that they have renewed their sleeve sponsorship agreement with online trading platform Trade Nation for another two seasons.
Trade Nation deal could be worth up to £16m for Villa
Trade Nation are believed to have paid Villa £2m to be their sleeve partner in 2023-24, but that fee will likely have quadrupled with the new arrangement.
Industry benchmarking would place the value of the deal at around £8m per year, or £16m over the course of the two-year contract.
For context, that could payOllie Watkins‘ £130,000-a-week wages over the same period, with change left over.
Clubs in the so-called Big Six can earn upwards of £20m per season from a sleeve deal.
Villa’s particiaption in the Champions League next season means millions more eyes will be on Trade Nation’s logo, giving Villa scope to raise the price.
A comparable deal would Newcastle United‘s with Noon.com, the Middle East-based ecommerce platform.
That package is worth a reported £7.5m per season and was struck when the Magpies qualified for the Champions League at the end of 2022-23.
Some have suggested that the fact than Noon is under the same ownership umbrella as the Saudi Public Investment Fund meant the price was inflated.
But the deal passed the Premier League’s Fair Market Value assessment and that means Villa will likely have used it as a benchmark with Trade Nation.
Football finance analysis: Villa get another FFP boost from latest sponsor deal
Villa have spent big to get where they are, and that means they are flirting with the upper limit of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules.
Every extra pound they earn is another they can spend in the transfer market, assuming that owners Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris are prepared to bankroll it.
The Trade Nation deal therefore is another victory for club business director Chris Heck, who has impressed since he was appointed a little over a year ago.
Villa may still ned to make adjustments to their budget in line with FFP given that the Premier League looks set to introduce new curbs on spending this summer.
The financial anchoring system and squad cost control ratio could be passed at the league’s AGM on 6th June.
Although Villa themselves will be hoping that an alternative proposal, which would see allowable losses over three years raised from £105m to £135m, will be passed instead, although that looks unlikely.