Sports sponsorships have long been a popular way for a broad range of cross-border payments companies to support their wider marketing efforts, but this summer has seen a particular focus on football clubs in the English Premier League, with a run of top-name sponsorship announcements.

Over the past couple of months, a host of cross-border payments-focused companies have announced new sponsorships with Premier League clubs, the majority of which operate in the B2B payments space. 

In mid August, Sokin announced a multi-year agreement with Manchester United, while July saw OFX announce a new sponsorship with Burnley and Airwallex and Ebury doing the same with Arsenal and Aston Villa respectively. Corpay, meanwhile, extended a sponsorship deal with West Ham that it first inked in 2018. 

In all cases, the partnerships come with the usual brand activation opportunities alongside agreements that will see the various clubs use their sponsors’ payments solutions. From scouting to international tours and even player purchases, football clubs at the Premier League level have significant and complex cross-border payments needs, making such partnerships potentially highly valuable for the clubs themselves.

The latest announcements join a host of already established cross-border payments sponsorships in the Premier League, with 65% of clubs in England’s leading football league having at least one sponsor in the cross-border payments space and 60% having at least one cross-border business payments-related sponsor. 

Other high-profile sponsorships include American Express’ sponsorship of Brighton and Hove Albion, which has run since 2019 and includes shirt sponsorship and naming rights to its stadium. Standard Chartered’s long-running Liverpool partnership, which was launched in 2010 and in 2022 was extended to 2027, also includes shirt sponsorship. Meanwhile, Ant International’s 2024-announced sponsorship of Tottenham Hotspur includes training wear sponsorship for Alipay+ across both the men’s and women’s teams.

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Lucy Ingham

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Lucy is VP of Content & Editor-in-Chief at FXC Intelligence, overseeing all content and taking deep dives into the trends and data driving changes in payments. Before joining FXC Intelligence, Lucy worked as a technology journalist and editor, interviewing CEOs and major names across enterprise technology, including fintech. She has an MSc in Development Anthropology from Durham University.