The 15 Most Iconic Sponsors in Football History

The rise of sponsors on the football shirts during the '80s and' 90s is interpretative key to the evolution of modern football.
It embodies the football club shift from simply sports organization to global companies, with bigger contracts and money showers. At the same time, the aesthetic appeal that vintage kits still hyped today is highly linked with the logomania's trend and plastic nostalgia of the 90s, the golden age of football and pop taste. The graphics of the sponsors were integrated in a much more imaginative and harmonious way on the design of the game uniforms, until becoming a characterizing element of the style of each club.
We have selected the 15 most iconic sponsors of the history of The Beautiful Game, if we have forgotten any, please let us know in the comments.

 

 Real Madrid - Teka

I always wondered what Teka - the pre-galacticos Real Madrid's sponsor - was: The Teka Group is a multinational company founded in Germany in 1924 and engaged in the manufacture and commercialization of kitchen and bath products

 

FC Inter - Pirelli

The Pirelli logo is a cornerstone of the modern logo design and its link with FC Inter has a historical value for the Milan-based club. The expanded P was designed in 1908 in New York in a graphic design studio. Nobody knows who invented it but we do know that the elongated shape was already a characteristic feature of the signature of the founder Giovanni Battista Pirelli, as reported by a document he signed in 1884. The graphic lengthening of the loop of the "P" alluded to the elasticity of rubber.

 

Eintracht Braunschweig- Jägermeister

In 1972 Eintracht Braunschweig was the first team in the history of football to put a sponsor on its kits. For this incredible revolution, the small German club decided to turn to the local liquor company Jägermeister, which was set only 8 kilometers away from the stadium in the small town of Wolfenbüttel. The result is a pure cult.

 

Newcastle - Brown Ale

Not only was its crisp, simple design a big hit, the fact that it featured Newcastle Brown Ale's logo - a local company - on its front went perfectly with the fact that this was the shirt first worn by Alan Shearer after returning in 1996 to his hometown to spearhead Newcastle's attempts to land the title.

 

Napoli - Mars

Maradona could turn every piece of cotton into an iconic item. Although, the combination of the retro Ennerre's design and the boldness of Mars' font - the company producing the caramel and chocolate bars - became a Serie A's classic. With this kit, the Azzurri won the last Scudetto of their history in 1989.

 

Boca Juniors and River Plate - Quilmes

The Argentinean brewery Quilmes founded in 1888 by the German immigrant Otto Bemberg, was the sponsor of Boca Juniors from 1995 to 2001 and of the River Plate from 1996 to 2002. 

 

AC Fiorentina - Nintendo

For two seasons (1997-98 and 1998-99), Fiorentina had one of the most legendary sponsors in the history of the game: Nintendo. It was 1997, Cecchi Gori was letting la Viola dreaming with a stunning squad: Batistuta terrorized Serie A and Bressan scored against Barcelona with a bicycle kick. Everything was dreamy, they were the 90s.

 

Arsenal - SEGA

Remaining in the arcade area, the partnership between SEGA and Arsenal remains an aestetich classic in the Premier League. It was the Arsenal of Arsene Wenger's invincibles: Sol Campbell, Thierry Herny, Patrick Vieria and Robert Pires.

 

Ajax - ABN AMRO

 ABN AMRO is a Dutch credit bank, nothing more suitable to sponsor Ajax that has made efficiency its trademark. The particularity of this sponsorship is the vertical orientation of the graphics, used for over 10 years.

 

Manchester United - Sharp

Sharp was Red Devils' sponsor from 1982 to 2000, entering the myth of world football thanks to the  David Beckham's free kicks and the Eric Cantona's raised collars. 

 

West Ham - Dr Martens

 A gem from the Premier League's archives: Dr. Martens logo on West Ham's kits burgundy. It was a team full a talent on and off the pitch: Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and Paolo di Canio were rocking Boleyn Ground.

 

Parma - Parmalat

 An another of failed utopia from the Serie A 90s. Tanzi's Parma - also Parmalat's owner - was one of the most spectacular teams of the decade and the design harmony between the logo of the food multinational and the graphic crusaders' t-shirts perfectly mirrors the dreamy and far patina of Zola's dribbling and Cannavaro's tackles.

 

Liverpool - Carlsberg

Another great British classic duo: Liverpool and Carlsberg. Steve G, Robbie Fowler, Micheal Owen, the wavy logo of the Danish brewery company appeared on the kits for 17 years in a row.

 

Sampdoria - Erg

The acronym ERG stands for Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, former president of the great Sampdoria Vialli-Mancini, in which Veròn, Mihajlović, Gullit passed among others. The elegant and edgy font of ERG seems to complete the Dorian suit.

 

Kinda everyone - Fly Emirates

The Emirates airline of the Arab Emirate of Dubai - Emirates Fly - is dominating the football shirt aesthetics of the last decade. From Real Madrid to PSG, Fly Emirates' logo has entered contemporary cultural aesthetics so much that it is reinterpreted in an ironic way by Fly Nowhere.