The Sunday News
Why is sponsorship in football important? Experts say sponsorship is important for a football club as it can help to fund necessities to ensure the club can continue to run. Not only does it provide the means for the club and team to operate, but it also, on a vanity level, demonstrates that you’re a professional club.
Jose Vale etal (2009) adds that sponsorship, in particular sports sponsorship, has grown in importance over recent years, becoming an important strategy in the organisation’s ‘marketing mix’. Nowadays, sporting events, like many others, would not survive without the investment of sponsors.
The sponsors in turn benefit from the high visibility offered by the sport, extensive coverage of the event by the media and the ability to attract a broad cross-section of the public as well as serving specific niches, also permitting the elimination of cultural barriers.
According to Bennett (1999), football and motorsports are areas which dominate the vast majority of expenditure. There are several reasons for companies to become involved with sponsorship, such as increasing awareness of the brand and raising the public image of the company.
Nevertheless, according to Westberg (2004), the main reason is the consumer’s increasing preference as well as their decision to purchase and re-purchase the products/services of the sponsoring company. These outputs grow dramatically when this sponsorship is connected to sporting events that reach large groups of the public or fans, as in the case of football.
Last week, the country’s biggest football clubs, Highlanders and Dynamos received a kiss of life when Sakunda Holdings sealed a massive sponsorship deal with them. The giant energy company poured in a combined US$5.3 million, which will be paid in local currency, over the next three years.
Each of the clubs will get US$450 000 to be channelled towards salaries and allowances, as well as US$60 000, which will be reserved for signing on fees, in each season, for three years. The clubs will also receive US$60 000 for administrative purposes, every season.
In addition, there will be a US$200 000 bonus for winning the league title, with a further US$150 000 set aside for qualification in the Confederation of African Football Champions League. The company also gave two vehicles to each club to be used by coaches and captains.
The sponsorship deal by Sakunda Holdings does not only benefit the two traditional football giants, but it goes further to breathe life into the local football scene whose standards had been on a downturn in recent years because of lack of sponsorship to the big giants. It goes without saying that football in the country gets exciting and lively when Highlanders and Dynamos are at their best.
The two clubs are the barometer of Zimbabwean football and it is hoped that the new money will help them get back to the high levels that their supporters are accustomed to.
Without big money to spend, the two clubs had surrendered all the glory to mine rich FC Platinum, who have dominated the domestic scene in recent years, and we believe the Zvishavane based champions will also welcome the challenge from the two giants.
Highlanders were already in trouble, with internal squabbles dominating headlines and players threatening to quit over unpaid salaries. But all that is expected to end with the coming of the new money, with focus shifting to the field of play when football action resumes following a long suspension because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Speaking at the sponsorship unveiling, Sakunda Holdings representative Everton Mlalazi said the company saw it fit to sponsor the two biggest football clubs in the country as part of their corporate social responsibility.
“This is part of our corporate social responsibility as Sakunda Holdings and by associating our brand with Highlanders and Dynamos, we hope it will work for all the parties involved,” he was quoted as saying.
Not only did Sakunda Holdings sponsor the clubs, but it went on to donate houses to soccer legends like the late George Shaya and living legends Madinda Ndlovu and Moses Chunga. Real football fans are over the moon now that the traditional football giants are well resourced, and cannot wait for the action to start.
