New Zealand Football sign five year sponsorship deal

New Zealand Football (NZF) has agreed a multi-million-dollar, five-year sponsorship deal with the ASB bank described as the biggest in the history of the sport in the country, reports Sport Business

The bank will name the New Zealand Premiership and the All Whites home internationals against Honduras and Paraguay next month, but a significant emphasis will be placed on developing grassroots programmes.

“Year in, year out, there are a lot of good ideas, but there’s never enough money to put the coaches on the ground, to put the programmes in place, to keep the material alive and really follow it through," said NZF chairman Frank van Hattum.

“There might be some temptation to see this as short-term World Cup fervour," he said,” added ASB chief executive Charles Pink.

“This is a five-year programme. I hope plus-plus over time. Most of our partnerships are over decades. This is something we starting talking to New Zealand Football about long before the World Cup. We are in there for the long term.”