Bradford City find new sponsor

After the news reported that the Bantams were in a last minute sponsor’s hunt as they had to submit their kit design to Surridge Sports to start the manufacturing process, Bradford City found what they were looking for. A company which saw the football club’s cry for help, took advantage of the reduced one-year advertising cost and agreed to pay the £60000 to have its logo printed on the shirts. This company is MAP Group (UK), a provider of technology services.

David Baldwin spoke about how the deal came about and also about the difficulty faced by the club when previous sponsors Bradford & Bingley pulled out of the agreed deal earlier than planned. The new sponsor deal was announced to the fans at the same time that season tickets were put on sale for an attractive price of £175.

“The call came from their managing director who’d had the T&A article forwarded to him. He wasn’t in the Bradford area at the time.”

“Both him and one of his fellow directors are Bradford City fans, which is fantastic. All along I’ve wanted people on that shirt who also have a vested interested in the fan side of the football club.”  

“Commercially, it’s a good deal anyway but to have somebody involved who already has a love for the club is perfect.”

“It’s been a headache because when you’ve got a contract there for another year on the shirts, you weren’t expecting a problem like this to arise.”  

“We’re working to a timetable to make sure we maximise income for this club and then this came out of the blue. Everyone is on edge because of the tough time we’re in anyway and it can prove a bit of a distraction during the season-ticket campaign.” 

“But everything is on schedule. We gave verbal confirmation to (kit makers) Surridge at 4pm on Friday and we’ve got a seven-day window now to go to signature. The contract will be signed and payment made this week.”

 “It’s good that we’ve got that stability. I don’t want to be going to the chairmen and saying we need to put more money into the club.”  

“The bottom line is that we stand alone as a trading business in our own right and we’re able to grow with the security of income coming in, so we are self-sustainable.”

Official Source

Braden Galea

Originally from Malta and I love football. I appreciate the opportunity that this website gave me to start my career in football journalism. I’m a Man Utd fan and England supporter, and I watch football games mainly from England, Germany and Spain. I love to be informed about everything that is happening in the world of football.