No More Shirts For Mansion Gaming Group

Published: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 Online-Casinos.com

NO MORE SHIRTS FOR MANSION ONLINE GAMING GROUP

$70 million deal ends in acrimony

Reports reaching Online-Casinos.com last week that a GBP 70 million shirt sponsorship deal between Mansion gambling group and Manchester United football club was close to fruition were dramatically reversed this week with the news that the final agreement had been dumped by the football club management.

A clearly disappointed Mansion group accused Manchester United of unspecified "double dealing" after sponsorship talks between the two companies broke down suddenly over the weekend.

Mansion chief negotiator David Kinsman said the two had verbally agreed a deal, but then United pulled out after talks with other firms.

United denied the claims, saying it never holds exclusive talks.

"We would understand why anybody would be disappointed at not securing the shirt sponsorship deal for Manchester United," the club said in a statement to the Press Association. "We have not and do not enter into periods of exclusive negotiation and every party we have discussed the shirt sponsorship with is aware of that.

"All the parties were aware that several discussions were going on at the same time and our priority is to look for the most appropriate deal for Manchester United," it added.

The club is looking for a new sponsor to replace Vodafone, whose GBP 9 million-a-year deal ends at the end of the season.

Kinsman said he and other Mansion executives had been "flabbergasted" by United's decision to pull out of negotiations on Sunday.

He added he had cut short a business trip in China to meet the club's commercial director Andy Anson after being led to believe the two had "done a deal". "It was something of a surprise therefore to be told that United had been negotiating with someone else," he added.

"During the negotiating process we had no idea this kind of double dealing was going on. Manchester United have not acted as we expected them to."

The all-cash deal with Mansion is believed to have involved a substantial up-front payment and further ongoing payments over the next four years.

According to Mansion, the two parties had also discussed a joint gaming venture which could have potentially helped to raise income for the club in overseas markets. The gambling group also said that United had wanted the option of buying a 20 percent stake in Mansion should the company ever float its business.