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- Lille’s ‘€2.2m’ per year contract with Boulanger expires in June
- Cazoo penned expanded PDC deal last week to continue aggressive sports sponsorship push
French soccer champions Lille OSC have signed up UK car retailer Cazoo as their main shirt sponsor from the 2022/23 season, according to L’Équipe.
Lille’s current front-of-shirt sponsor deal is with household appliances and multimedia equipment retailer Boulanger, which expires in June and is reportedly worth €2.2 million (US$2.5 million) per year.
L’Équipe reports that Cazoo, which is looking to make inroads into the French market, has penned a three-year deal worth €4 million (US$4.6 million) per season, with the Sportfive agency taking a 25 per cent cut of the total contract value for its role in securing the partnership.
Cazoo acquired car rental service Drover as part of plans to expand its reach across Europe in December 2020 and a deal with Lille would follow the model it used in the UK by making sports sponsorship a key part of its marketing efforts.
The brand has signed a slew of deals with a variety of different properties over the last few years. Earlier in January, the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) expanded its partnership with Cazoo to include the title sponsorship of the World Darts Championship, as well as for three other events.
The latest PDC pact saw Cazoo add to a sponsorship portfolio that includes Premier League soccer clubs Everton and Aston Villa, the English Football League (EFL), franchise cricket competition The Hundred, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), and the 2021 Rugby League World Cup.
On the pitch, Lille sit tenth in the Ligue 1 table. They next face 18th placed side Lorient on 19th January.
