Finance expert Kieran Maguire has discussed how UEFA’s decision to end their sponsorship deal with Russian gas company Gazprom will affect Liverpool.
Although the governing body are expected to lose a significant amount of money ‘worth six figures’ as a result, UEFA decided to cut ties with the company earlier this week as a result of the Russia – Ukraine invasion.
“It’s a senior sponsor alongside Heineken, Ford etcetera,” Maguire told Football Insider.
“Uefa is always grateful for sponsors but the preeminent source of its income is for broadcasting rights.
“There are 96 teams in the three Uefa competitions. Spread that between them and it’ll probably be worth six figures in terms of the financial hit they’ll take.
“For Liverpool, it could be worth around about the same as the prize money for a draw in a Champions League group stage match.”
That’s not really a significant amount of money for a club the size of Liverpool especially considering we’ve already advanced through to the knock out stages and look set to book a place in the quarter-final when we play Inter Milan at Anfield on Tuesday.
On Monday, UEFA released a statement via their website that read:
“UEFA has today decided to end its partnership with Gazprom across all competitions.
“The decision is effective immediately and covers all existing agreements including the UEFA Champions League, UEFA national team competitions and UEFA EURO 2024.”
The financial impact of sporting clubs and governing bodies is rather irrelevant when you consider what the people of Ukraine are going through at the moment.
It was moving to see everyone in the Premier League come together yesterday and show solidarity for Ukraine – we hope the dreadful events will end as soon as possible in order for peace to return to the nation.