MILAN (Reuters) – Juventus on Tuesday unveiled their new home kit but without a sponsor’s name on the famous white and black shirt as the Serie A club is still seeking a new partner after the end of a longstanding deal with the Jeep brand.
Negotiations with parties potentially interested in a deal are ongoing, with one of them at a more advanced stage, said a source with knowledge of the matter.
However, Italy’s most successful club faces the risk of starting the 2024/2025 campaign next month without any main sponsor on its kit, said the source, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Any new agreement will likely be less lucrative than the one with Jeep which expired at the end of last season and was worth some 45 million euros ($49 million) per year, according to the person.
Italian champions Inter Milan this month clinched a four- year sponsorship deal with a sport content platform run by online gaming company Betsson reportedly worth 30 million euros annually.
Hurdles facing Juventus in securing a new main sponsorship deal are partly linked to challenging market conditions and the reduced global reach of Serie A compared with other European leagues, according to the source.
The Turin-based club has been in turmoil recently. Juventus are returning to the Champions League this year after a ban from European competition in 2023/24 following accounting issues.
The team suffered a 10-point deduction in Serie A in the 2022/2023 season in a case revolving around player trading activity and salaries payments.
Milan-listed Juventus, which has been controlled by the Agnelli family for a century, had to raise around 900 million euros from its shareholders over the past five years in three separate cash call operations to beef up its balance sheet.
Roughly two thirds of these cash calls were covered by Exor, the investment arm of the Agnelli family.
The Jeep brand, which had sponsored Juventus since 2012, is part of automaker Stellantis, in which the Agnellis’ Exor is also the single largest investor.
($1 = 0.9174 euros)
(Reporting by Elvira Pollina; Editing by Keith Weir)
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