Match of the day? In the not too distant past a catchy jingle on a crackling radio ad and some good old-fashioned word of mouth was the best way to promote a company. Today however, exposure, brand awareness and marketability are the corporate watchwords of the moment as firms from Argentina to Zambia and everywhere in between attempt to pass their key on to potential message customers worldwide

Middle East, The, June, 2006 by Rhys Jones

TRADITIONALLY, RADIO, PRINT and billboard advertising were the most effective ways to reel in new customers. But these days sport, and football in particular, is the marketing tool of choice for the companies with their eyes on the really big prizes: global recognition, thousands of new customers and mega-bucks.

This fact has not been lost on some of the Middle East's biggest and fastest growing companies with Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways and Doha's Qatar Airways both moving in on huge football sponsorship deals in the UK. With Britain's Premier League beamed into some 450m homes in 195 countries worldwide it's easy to see why. Earlier this year the UAE's national carrier Etihad Airways confirmed it was in talks with Manchester United and other European football clubs about sponsoring their shirts and overall operations. Ian Ferguson-Brown, the airline's head of marketing, recently told the British press that the company was "talking to just about every European football club about sponsorship, including Manchester United".

However, when United signed a US$98.98m four-year shirt sponsorship deal with US insurance company American International Group (AIG) last month it shattered the dreams of two high-flying airlines. Etihad and Qatar Airways had both held advanced talks with the high-profile English club before the deal with the world's largest insurer was finalised. Nevertheless, the interest shown by both carriers in sponsoring a top team indicates that perennial sport sponsor Emirates Airline could face a challenge from its regional rivals both at home and abroad.

Last November, mobile phone giant Vodafone, which has sponsored Manchester United since 2000, revealed it would be ending its four-year shirt deal with the club to focus on European Champions League sponsorship. The latest deal, worth US$15.5m a year, began only last season and will now end this summer.

Etihad was set up in July 2003 and is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, which is currently reaping an oil revenue windfall as a result of soaring crude prices. The emirate, ruled by the Al Nahyan family, pumps more than two million barrels of oil daily, worth an estimated US$12m. And although it missed out on the Manchester United deal, the little known company could catapult itself onto the world stage overnight if it gets the sponsorship deal it is clearly looking for.

"Sponsoring major teams is the perfect medium to develop your brand globally--today football is a global game and is the most popular sport in the world," says Harry Philp, managing director of Hermes Sports Partners, which advises on football sponsorship and investment. "Middle Eastern airlines such as Etihad can afford the entry costs into this market and therefore it is the perfect medium for them."

Last year Premier League matches were watched by a cumulative audience of some 1.3bn people in countries as far afield as Burundi and Jamaica. As such, a tie-up with another of England's top clubs and the world's most watched football league would undoubtedly raise Etihad's international profile exponentially.

"The Premier League is a truly global sporting and televisual phenomenon," says Richard Scudamore, the Premier League's CEO. "Our games are shown in more countries, watched by more people and make up more hours of TV coverage than either Spanish or Italian football."

Manchester United, Britain's most successful club of the past decade, is struggling to pay off more than US$1.1bn of debt and is facing opposition from a rebel fan group that has called for a boycott of sponsors to protest the American Glazer family's US$1.4bn purchase of the team. The club's half-year profits dropped by more than 50%, hit by falling TV income and the cost of buying new players. It reported pre-tax profits of US$21.5m for the six months to 31 January, down from US$46.Sm a year earlier.

Etihad tabled a US$22.5m a year offer to sponsor United's shirts for four years back in March. The deal would have surpassed the US$19m reigning Premier League champions Chelsea annually receives from Samsung--currently the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in British football.

Nevertheless, United's AIG deal still falls short of the US$24.5m a year Real Madrid will collect for five years from Siemens' partner Taiwanese mobile phone and laptop computer maker BenQ from next summer. The biggest European shirt sponsorship at present is between energy giant Tamoil and Italian club Juventus, which is worth a staggering US$26m a season.

AIG's involvement in football now makes the financial services industry the game's largest sponsor behind telecommunications, according to sport advertising consultancy Sport Markt. Other firms involved include Northern Rock, which sponsors Newcastle United, Fortis, which has a deal with Anderlecht and Victoria Versicherung AG, through its association with German team Schalke 04.

Qatar Airways, which already sponsors the perimeter of some Premier League grounds, also held talks with Manchester United but, unlike Etihad, did not make a formal bid. However, the Doha-based carrier has been keeping a close eye on developments elsewhere and has been strongly tipped to make a move towards sponsoring the 2005 European champions, Liverpool, when the club's current deal with Carlsberg expires next year.