 has awarded IMG agency rights to sell sponsorship packages to its major competitions until 2025 following a recent Request for Proposal (RFP) process.){kind=link}
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The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has awarded IMG agency rights to sell sponsorship packages to its major competitions until 2025 following a recent Request for Proposal (RFP) process.
In April, CAF began its search for a global sponsorship sales agency as it issued an RFP process covering its competitions across the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons.
CAF and IMG today (Thursday) held a signing ceremony to launch the new agreement. On the IMG side, the project is headed by Adolfo Bara, senior vice president and managing director of football events.
Bara said: “Following Morocco’s historic performances at the Fifa World Cup in Qatar last year, which captured the heart and imagination of fans around the world, global interest in African football has never been higher. We look forward to building on that incredible momentum by leveraging IMG’s extensive global sales network and regional expertise, to develop more strategic sponsorship opportunities for the next generation of African football.”
Along with the flagship Africa Cup of Nations tournaments in 2023 and 2025, IMG will sell sponsorships to 10 other CAF competitions. These include the CAF Champions League, CAF African Nations Championship, CAF Confederation Cup, CAF Super Cup, CAF Women Africa Cup of Nations and CAF Women Champions League.
Historically, CAF’s media and sponsorship rights were sold by Lagardère Sports – now known as Sportfive – but the governing body cancelled its 12-year, $1bn (€950m) contract with the agency in 2019. The deal had been extended to 2028 before the termination.
Team Marketing and the France-based Agon agency recently delivered a winning bid during a tender process for CAF’s international media rights, as reported by SportBusiness. While Team and Agon have been identified as the successful bidders, a long-form contract must still be signed and, as such, the deal is not yet finalised.
Sponsorship sales have been performed in-house over the last two years with the support of Agon. The Egypt-based continental body has been putting in place a new commercial department led by Hassan El Kamah.
CAF recently announced Chinese smartphone brand Tecno as a sponsor of the 2023 Afcon to be hosted at the start of next year in Ivory Coast. Further sponsorship announcements are expected to follow in the coming weeks.
CAF has had spaces to fill in its sponsorship inventory since the expiry of deals with Continental Tyres and payment services giant Visa.
The portfolio is headlined by energy company TotalEnergies, the Afcon title sponsor in a wide-ranging contract running from 2017 to 2024.
A long-term sponsorship agreement with betting operator 1XBET runs from 2019 to 2028. Umbro was CAF’s official ball and referee kit supplier for the 2021 Afcon but the confederation is set to announce a new equipment supplier soon.
CAF president Patrice Motsepe remarked: “IMG is a global agency with vast experience in facilitating sponsorship and partnership opportunities and we are confident that together we will make CAF competitions more commercially viable and financially attractive. Our agreement with IMG will increase our revenues from sponsorship and contribute to the development and growth of African football.”