SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Winamax has been named the main sponsor of Bundesliga team, VfB Stuttgart.
The deal marks the French online gambling firm’s first sponsorship agreement in Germany, and will see its logo featured on the first team’s shirts until 2026.
Alexandre Roos, Winamax Group CEO, said: “We are proud to be working with VfB Stuttgart. VfB has one of the greatest traditions of all clubs in Germany, and is also extremely well known beyond the country’s borders.
“Passion, emotion and a love of sport form the basis of our company, while our values are centred around a sense of fairness and responsibility, and it’s with this promise that we are looking to establish in the German market.
“We have analysed the market and its potential in depth and chosen the strongest available platform in German sport. With this in mind, we see VfB as the perfect partner for our growth strategy. Winamax is proud to become a new member of the wide-ranging VfB family.“
Furthermore, the top division club praised the operator for showing a ‘consistent commitment’ to the protection of minors and combatting gambling addiction.
It said that with this in mind, all VfB shirts in children’s sizes will just have ‘Stuttgart’ written across the front, rather than the betting firm’s branding.
VfB Stuttgart CEO, Alexander Wehrle, added: “With our portfolio of partners, which combines a regional focus with international resonance, VfB is in great shape for the years to come.
“We now have incredibly attractive partners across the board – maintaining existing ones and acquiring significant new ones, which will enable us to increase our marketing income from the 2023/24 season onwards compared with previous years.
“Furthermore, we will be able to push forward with strategic priorities such as digitisation, internationalisation and sustainability with these partners. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our partners for their loyalty and their commitment to VfB.”
Last year, Winamax’s partnership with Ligue 1 club Girondins de Bordeaux was terminated following the club’s disapproval of the betting platform’s tweets about a recent match.
The sports betting site had signed the sponsorship in summer 2021 but, as reported by France Bleu, had the partnership terminated over jokes aimed at the club on social media.
