The 10 biggest kit sponsorship deals in football | OneFootball

The truth about modern football is that what goes on behind the scenes is pretty much just as important as what happens on the pitch. You can have all the talent in the world in a squad, but those players won't hang around for long if the club is being run like a circus.

Just look at Lionel Messi. The greatest player in the history of the sport ultimately left Barcelona in 2021 because the Spanish giants didn't have enough of a wage budget left to offer him a new contract. In the years since, the Catalan outfit have pulled many levers but their finances remain in a worrying state.

This may explain why they may soon leave Nike – who have been their kit sponsors since 1998 – and move to Puma in a move which could see them earn £171m per season. Should that deal go through, Barca would land the most lucrative kit deal in the world of football.

But until that happens, Barcelona will have to make do we what they have – which isn't bad, by the way. Along that line of thinking, we've written about the 10 biggest kit sponsorship deals in football, as per Football Benchmark.

10 Liverpool

Nike - £150.45m

Compared to most of the other clubs on this list, Liverpool have a fairly short contract. Signed in 2020, their five-year deal with Nike will expire in 2025. At the time, the Reds would have been one of the most exciting clubs in the world.

After all, they had won the Champions League in 2018/19 and then followed that up by winning the Premier League 12 months later. Manager Jurgen Klopp was the mastermind behind all this but his decision to leave the club at the end of the 2023/24 season could impact their finances.

As we've seen with Sir Alex Ferguson leaving Manchester United, when a great manager moves on, it can be hard to get an adequate replacement and a team can suffer great reputational damage. Nike, or any other potential sponsors, may have this in mind when it's time to renew at Anfield again.

9 Juventus

Adidas - £376.8m

From the 2011/12 campaign all the way through to the 2019/20 season, Juventus won the Serie A without interruption. This likely would have influenced Adidas when they agreed an eight-year contract with the Italian giants in 2019.

Unfortunately for both parties, the highest Juve have finished since then is fourth. They even finished as low as seventh in 2022/23 after picking up a 10-point ban as punishment for 'false accounting' in relation to past transfer dealings. They consequently didn't qualify for the Champions League or Europa League and were banned from the Europa Conference League due to a violation of UEFA's financial regulations.

8 Arsenal

Adidas - £450.78m

Arsenal's contract with Adidas is one of the most recent. It only began in 2024, which explains why, in terms of payment per annum, they are one of the best-paid teams – ranking fourth on that front, with a £75.13m fixed payment every year.

However, their contract is only six years, so the total sum only sees them ranked seventh out of the top ten. The club look to be on an upward trajectory under Mikel Arteta, now challenging for Premier League titles again and back in the Champions League.

With that in mind, it makes sense that Adidas have increased their payment – which was previously reported to be in the region of £300m over five years – to £450.78m over six years. Puma was their prior kit sponsor, and it was Nike before that, showing that Arsenal aren't afraid to mix it up.

7 Barcelona

Nike - £540m

As mentioned before, Barcelona are currently with Nike but are reportedly hoping to switch to Puma. On their present deal, which runs until 2024, they are making a generous £90m per season, but this could nearly double to £171m if all parties can come to an agreement.

What's more, Puma has said they will offer a bonus if they can get out of their contract with Nike. But the American company believes they will incur losses of £300m if Barcelona walk away in the coming months, so have little incentive to let this play out.

also resign at the end of the season.

6 Manchester City

Puma - £651.4m

While Puma are hoping to land Barcelona, their current biggest clients are Manchester City. The English side are flying the flag well for the brand, though, having won the treble last season thanks to the genius of Pep Guardiola, Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne and co.

In 2019, are deal was agreed which will see City net £65.14m per season for an entire decade. With the Cityzens facing 115 breaches of Financial Fair Play (FFP), fans of the club will be hoping all that income from the sponsors will go some way to proving their innocence.

5 Bayern Munich

Adidas - £769.2

It's hard to imagine a Bayern Munich shirt without an Adidas logo on it. After all, their relationship dates back to 1974 when the Bavarian club wore a sponsor on their chest for the first time in their history. Since those days of growth with Franz Beckenbauer and co, many triumphs have followed.

Indeed, Bayern have won the Bundesliga every season since 2012/13 and with such levels of consistency – coupled with their storied history – it's no surprise that Adidas have signed a lengthy contract with them. Starting in 2015, the deal with run for 15 years, working out a £51.28m per season.

If you're going off how much a sponsor pays a team every 12 months, Real Madrid actually top the list as Adidas give them a whopping £102m per season to be worn on the front of that famous white shirt. However, this is only on an eight-year contract so the total sum works out at £816m.

The German company and Los Blancos have been working together since 1998 – incidentally, this is for as long as football rivals Barca have worked with sportswear rivals Nike. In this time, Madrid have made themselves the kings of Europe time and time again. They completed "La Decima" in the 2013-2014 season, becoming the first team to win 10 Champions League trophies.

3 Paris Saint-Germain

Nike - £888.94m

While Paris Saint-Germain are paid a comparatively modest fee of £68.38m per season, the length of that contract – 13 years – helps them rank highly on this list. Perhaps the most interesting part of their sponsorship is that, ever since 2019, some of their kits have had the Michael Jordan design printed on instead of the famous Nike tick.

The Jordan Brand is a subsidiary of Nike and so it's all part of the same deal with the American company. The legendary basketball player has had a love of the French capital dating way back to 1985 when the Chicago Bulls came to visit. It's certainly helped the brand to have some of the biggest football stars of the past decade – Messi, Neymar, and Kylian Mbappe – rep the logo in recent years.

Nike - £902.7m

It's hard to talk about Todd Boehly without thinking about long-term deals. The American has, after all, been the brains behind handing out contracts to Mykhaylo Mudryk, Enzo Fernandez, Moises Caicedo and Nicolas Jackson that run until 2031.

However, Chelsea's current terms with Nike date back to the Roman Abramovich era, with the agreement being signed in 2017. That 15-year deal will see the relationship run until at least 2032 with the Blues raking in £60.18m per season – the highest fee of all London clubs.

It's unlikely that either party would have expected so much turbulence in the seven years since it was agreed. Indeed, in that time, the ownership has changed and they've had seven different managers – at least they've also won the Champions League.

1 Manchester United

Adidas - £906m

What's been remarkable about Manchester United in the post-Ferguson years, has been their ability to perform fantastically commercially despite their abject displays on the pitch. As per Forbes, although they have not won the Premier League since 2012/13, they are the second most valuable team in the world – behind only Real Madrid.

Being such a huge global brand understandably attract plenty of sponsorship offers. Couple this with the fact that they are playing in the most-watched football division, and arguably the best, in the world and it makes sense that the Red Devils top this list.

What's more, with their 10-year Adidas contract the newest on the list – not set to kick in until 2025 – it makes sense that they have the best terms right now. The way things are going though, by the time the £90.6m-per-season deal ends in 2035, that might not look like quite so much when compared to other teams who would have renewed more recently.