Liverpool will replace Standard Chartered as their front-of-shirt partner next season after agreeing a record £300m deal with Turkish Airlines.
The flagbearer, already a sponsor of the Uefa Champions League, will pay £60m per season as part of a five-year deal beginning in 2027 in what is being reported as the biggest front-of-shirt deal in Premier League history.
Arsenal’s £70m-per-year deal with fellow airline Emirates includes naming rights to the champions’ north London stadium.
Standard Chartered will remain as a global partner of the Anfield club, but Liverpool’s new deal is the latest major partnership move in a summer of shifting commercial sands in the Premier League.
Turkish Airlines’ global hub is Istanbul, a city synonymous in footballing terms with Liverpool’s famous 2005 Champions League victory and Ben Latty, the club’s chief commercial officer, said: “This is a milestone announcement for us and we are delighted to welcome Turkish Airlines as our main club partner from June 2027.
Liverpool in new deal
“The front of the Liverpool shirt holds a special place in the history of our club. Turkish Airlines is a globally recognised organisation with an extensive international network, and we look forward to beginning our partnership and building a strong relationship together, with already strong foundations built from those special memories back in 2005.”
Liverpool will join the likes of the Turkish Football Federation and clubs Galatasaray, Trabzonspor and Istanbul Basaksehir as teams sponsored by the airline. More widely, the flagbearer is the title sponsor of basketball’s EuroLeague.
Next summer will see two major financial brands leaving the coveted front-of-shirt positions of Big Six clubs, with Standard Chartered disappearing from Liverpool’s red jerseys and AIA switching from Tottenham Hotspur’s shirt to their training kit.
Standard Chartered’s deal with Liverpool stretches back to 2010, while prior to that the Merseyside club had a near-two decade long deal with Carlsberg.
The editor of trade title The Sponsor, Sean Connell, said the valuation is in line with industry expectations, stating that “The Sponsor’s FMV Index valued Liverpool’s front-of-shirt sponsorship at £61m”.
“The speed at which Liverpool’s commercial team has secured a replacement for Standard Chartered shows that when sponsorship assets are priced correctly, the market responds,” he added. “When sponsorship assets are priced above their fair market value, they can stay vacant for months, even years.”