English Premier League football club Liverpool FC is being taken to court for a commission of more than £1 million over a £15-million deal with an online gambling operator to sponsor the training kit of the team.
According to claims made by sports sponsorship firm Winlink, the club, which is currently the leader in the EPL ranking, owes a total of £1.125 million as club officials were introduced to their contacts at BetVictor back in 2013 by one of its senior executive officers. Winlink now claims that, for several years, it was greatly engaged in securing a successful introduction of the gambling company to inking a sponsorship deal with the professional football club. As a result, the two parties inked a £5-million-a year deal for three seasons in the EPL from 2016/17 to 2018/19.
Liverpool FC, on the other hand, claims that Rafaella Valentino, who heads the global partnership sales of the club, had been the one who personally negotiated the deal with Andreas Meinrad, who apart from being the CEO of BetVictor, is a friend of hers. The professional football club further noticed that the deal was negotiated by Ms Valentino shortly after she became part of Liverpool FC towards the end of 2015 and explained that the introduction of Winlink was not the cause of the deal.
Winlink Claims It Played Important Part in the Agreement of the £15-Million Deal
The beginning of the week saw the barrister of Winlink Andrew Sutcliffe, QC, take part in a remote High Court trial. Mr Sutcliffe shared that the company spent significant time and effort in building the relationship between BetVictor and Liverpool FC. He noted that the company agreed that it played no role in the negotiation process of the agreement reached in 2016 but insisted that it was providing Liverpool FC with an introduction service.
The sports sponsorship firm’s barrister further explained that Winlink and Bettor, its sister company that specialises in identifying and introducing betting operators to sports right holders, had previously earned commissions for introducing sports betting operators to many football clubs, including Chelsea, Arsenal, Juventus and Inter Milan.
Mr Sutcliffe highlighted the fact that Winlink was supposed to meet only two conditions in order to be granted its commission and it made sure it had met both of them. As cited by the barrister, the first condition for Winlink to meet was to introduce the football club to senior officials at BetVictor, while the second one was to see the British bookmaker sponsor Liverpool FC. However, Mr Sutcliffe shared that the EPL football club had not kept its side of the deal.
Liverpool FC’s barrister Robert Anderson challenged these claims, saying that the introductions made by Winlink had nothing in common with the execution of the training kit deal worth £15 million. According to him, Winlink is not eligible to get the commission, as it participated in the introductions two and a half years before the agreement of the 2016 deal.
- Author
Olivia Cole
