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Juventus football club

  
Italian soccer club Juventus has signed what is being described as the biggest ever sponsorship deal to be agreed in the sport, writes the Turin-based newspaper La Stampa.

The agreement involves an initial sum of €110 million, La Stampa says, to cover the period between July 2005 and July 2010, in exchange for which the Libyan-based oil company Tamoil will receive exclusive shirt sponsorship rights. A further €130 million has been agreed to cover the following 5 years, making the deal worth a total of €240 million.

Tamoil already sponsors Juventus in domestic televised competitions, but will now see its rights extended to all those in which Juventus competes, including the Champions League, in which the club is soon to face Liverpool of the UK in the quarter finals of this year's competition.

The €22 million the club will receive annually in the first five years of the contract compares favourably, La Stampa says, with the €17 million German club Bayern Munich receives from sponsor T-Mobile, the €13 million paid per year by Vodafone to Manchester United and the €14 million set aside by Siemens to sponsor Real Madrid.

Al Saadi Gheddafi, son of the Libyan dictator and ex-member of the board of Juventus, is said to have been heavily involved in the deal. Tamoil has extensive oil and petrol interests in Italy, its largest foreign market.

To read a longer version of this story, in Italian, click on the link below (left) to see it as published by La Stampa. Alternatively, click on the link below (right) to find out more about Tamoil.