Manchester United agree Adidas contract extension: what is the biggest football kit deal?

Manchester United have penned a 10-year extension to their partnership with Adidas.

The German sports brand will continue to produce the team’s kits until 2035 after a package worth a minimum of £900 million ($1.16bn) was agreed. The deal comfortably exceeds the £750 million that United received for the previous 10 years.

Adidas has partnered with Manchester United since the 2015/16 season, when the club ended its ties with Nike.

“The relationship between Manchester United and Adidas is one of the most iconic in world sport,” the club’s chief executive Richard Arnold said on Monday. “With its roots in the 1980s, our partnership has been reinvented over the past decade with some of the most innovative designs and technology in sportswear.”

“We are now looking forward to refreshing this powerful partnership again through the remainder of this decade and into the 2030s.”

Adidas previous produced Manchester United kits from 1980 to 1992.

How much is Manchester United’s Adidas deal worth?

In a statement announcing the extension, United confirmed that the contract includes “a minimum cash guarantee of £900m, subject to certain adjustments”.

Exact details of the new deal are still unknown, but the club’s annual reports reveal that the previous contract tied certain payments to Champions League qualification. In the past, two consecutive seasons without Champions League football would see annual payments cut by 30%.

If something similar is included in the new deal United could actually stand to receive well over £900 million across the duration of the contract, provided they satisfy the conditions in the deal.

What is the biggest kit deal in football?

Manchester United’s new sponsorship agreement is the biggest in the history of the Premier League, worth an least £90 million per season over the next decade.

However their deal is not the biggest in the world of soccer; it’s not even the biggest kit deal offered by Adidas.

That distinction goes to Real Madrid, who signed a deal worth at least €1.1 billion ($1.21bn) with the German kit manufacturer back in 2019. Reports suggest that the true value of that contract could be far higher.

At the time, Goal reported that Madrid could receive as much as €152 million ($170m) per year once merchandising rights and additional payments are factored in. The true value of that ten-year deal could be close to €1.8 billion ($1.98bn), the report suggests.