VALENCIA

How the Vinicius case impacted Valencia’s finances

Cazoo took advantage of the Competition ruling to break their sponsorship contract for an amount less than the one which they had signed.

MATEO VILLALBAGetty Images

The Vinicius case continues to have an impact at Valencia. Even though the club acted swiftly and forcefully to identify and deal with the fan that the Real Madrid striker pointed out as well as two other spectators who hurled racial insults, the damage to Valencia’s reputation is immeasurable - and then they is also the economic losses.

Valencia were also quick to react to Rodrygo’s recent claims that, “An entire stadium called Vinicius a monkey” - actually a false statement that the Real Madrid player had to retract for the threat of being charged for libel. Valencia issued a statement to “reject the false statements made by the player Rodrygo Goes, in which he said that the entirety of Mestalla participated in racist chants towards his teammate. Such statements are serious lies that contribute to stigmatising an exemplary fanbase in a completely unfair way”.

The Vinicius case was used by the rental car company Cazoo to break its sponsorship contract with Valencia, the only club that had not compromised with its proposal to break the contract due to a change in the company’s strategy. Valencia signed a two-year shirt sponsor deal with Cazoo (until 2024). The company had shirt sponsorship contracts with a number of European football and basketball clubs, including Real Sociedad, Lille, Olympique Marseille, Bologna and Freiburg. But, a few months later, the British company informed the clubs that due to a change in marketing strategy it would cancel all sponsorship deals within the EU to focusing its energies on the United Kingdom. It requested the immediate termination of all contracts valid beyond June 2023.

Valencia was one of the few clubs that refused to terminate the contract, valid until 2024 for 4 million euros per season. The club’s legal services understood that a change in company strategy was not among the terms included in the contract regarding terminating the relationship. In fact, while Valencia began to move in the main sponsor market to find another, the club’s position, as it transferred to Puma for the new kits, was to keep Cazoo. But the Vinicius case changed everything.

A burofax detailing image damages

Valencia, as Tribuna Deportiva pointed out at the time, received a burofax from Cazoo’s legal services a few days after Vinicius suffered racist abuse during Madrid’s league game at Mestalla. There they told them that the events that took place at the Valencia-Real Madrid match damaged the company’s image and even pointed out that they were considering suing the Spanish club for damaging its image.

Cazoo’s lawyers presented as an argument the resolution of the RFEF Competition Committee, which ordered the partial closure of Mestalla due to security failures, a nuance that implicated Valencia as indirectly responsible and an ace in the hand for Cazoo’s legal team. Finally both parties reached an agreement, with Cazoo paying Valencia one million euros instead of the four million due for the final year of the contract.

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