The English football club Liverpool won a Superior Court case against Winlink, which had filed a lawsuit against the team for £ 1.1 million.
The amount is related to a £ 15 million deal for BetVictor to sponsor the champion’s training uniform from the last edition of the Premier League.
Winlink said Liverpool owed the company £ 1.1 million because one of its executives introduced BetVictor to club officers in 2013.
However, Liverpool contested that Rafaella Valentino, the company’s global head of sales, personally negotiated the deal with BetVictor CEO Andreas Meinrad.
Ruling in favor of Liverpool, Judge Mark Pelling gave his verdict remotely, declaring that the deal “owed nothing” to the introduction of Winlink.
Pelling stated: “the deal concluded in 2016 was of an order of magnitude completely different from the transactions in 2014 and 2015. And, in addition, it was qualitatively different”.
He continued: “This was a major global sponsorship deal that involved not advertising for a short period of time on each LED panel match. But extensive exposure in the training kit – as well as almost everything generated by Liverpool, except uniform of your main team “.
Contract between Liverpool and BetVictor
The sponsorship contract between the English team and the bookmaker, BetVictor was originally announced on the 1st of July 2016.
The three-year deal has enabled the betting company to become one of Liverpool’s main partners. Founded in 1946, BetVictor is one of Europe’s leading online bookmakers and operates in more than 160 countries.
At the time, Billy Hogan, then commercial director of the English team, evaluated the deal in an interview with Liverpool’s official website.
“We are therefore very pleased to welcome BetVictor to the Liverpool family as a partner. We can’t wait to work with such an ambitious brand for the next three seasons. Bringing exclusive offers and content to our fans around the world, ”he said in 2016.
