Chinese Dairy Giant Yili Dives Into Backing AFC Flagship Tournament

Chinese dairy major Yili Group have secured a deal with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) to sponsor its national team competitions for the 2021-24 cycle.

The deal includes the 2023 Asian Cup, the AFC’s flagship national team tournament that was expanded for the 2019 edition to 24 teams and is next being hosted in China.

Yili joins the AFC as an Official Partner, its highest tier of sponsorship in a deal reportedly worth almost US$30m.

The AFC has just completed the first group round of Asian Qualifying for both the Qatar 2022 World Cup and 13 teams – Australia, China, Iraq, Iran, Japan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Syria, the UAE and Vietnam – have qualified for the 2023 Asian Cup.

The AFC has also announced the 22 nations (plus four nations in play-offs) for the next round of Asian Cup qualifying to fill the final 11 slots. Qatar 2022 qualifying is now down to 12 nations (as above excluding Qatar) who will compete in two groups of six with the top two qualifying automatically.

Yili’s sponsorship will begin with the start of the next qualifying rounds which correspond with the start of the national team end of the AFC’s 2021-24 commercial rights cycle.

According to ASN data, Yili has been active as the second largest spender (30.4%, ~US$8.5m) for football related sponsorships in the dairy beverage category over the past three years, however, it traditionally focused on endorsements with international icons such as Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham in the past.  And with the recent AFC deal, the dairy giant probably sees more value in diving deeper into backing major regional tournaments, more so when it’s being hosted in China.