Politics Kills Yet Another Chinese Sponsorship. EPL (not IPL) this time

Premier League’s Southampton are reportedly searching for a new main sponsor amid growing uncertainty over their current three-year deal with Chinese firm LD Sports.

According to a media report, LD Sports is set to retreat from its US$9.8m-a-season contract with the top-flight English football club side two years early.

The deal, signed in May 2019, is said to include a break clause that could see the agreement terminated this summer, while it is also thought that LD Sports’ decision to end the arrangement has been due to the growing political tension between China and the UK.

Southampton, who released their new 2020/21 kits featuring LD Sports branding last month, are majority owned by Chinese businessman Jisheng Gao, who purchased 80 per cent of the club through his Lander Sports investment vehicle for a reported UK£200 million (US$259 million) in August 2017.

In March, it was reported that Gao was looking to offload his stake in the club for around US$322 million, but the report added LD Sports’ decision to part ways does not reflect the owner’s intentions ‘in any way’.

At the time of its announcement, Southampton’s tie-up with LD Sports was touted as the ‘biggest sponsorship deal in the club’s history’, but doubts were immediately raised when it emerged that the company, which was described by the club as ‘a brand-new sports content, marketing and entertainment platform’, had yet to launch.

The report also added that another Premier League team is now at risk of losing its deal with a Chinese sponsor ahead of the new season, while Championship club Blackburn Rovers have also confirmed that their deal with Chinese gambling operator 10Bet has been terminated a year early.

This is not the only incidence of a Chinese brand’s high profile sponsorship succumbing to political tensions recently: last month, smartphone Vivo caved into tensions caused by the India-China border scrap and rescinded its Title Sponsorship of the Indian Premier League (IPL) prematurely.