Allianz are amongst the companies competing to become Chelsea's main shirt sponsor, according to reports. The current sponsor is Three but the deal is set to expire at the end of the season.
Chelsea had been hopeful of arriving at a new partnership before now due to the financial implications at stake but there is now fresh optimism of an announcement within the next six weeks. It comes after the mobile group decided against extending their three-year agreement with the club.
Three received backlash from supporters for their reaction to the club's links to Roman Abramovich in the weeks after the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year. It lead the sponsor to suspend the deal after the former owner was sanctioned by the UK government.
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This went down poorly with fans after a request for branding to be removed from the kit worn and adverts around Stamford Bridge during a time of extreme uncertainty. This came around halfway through the initial deal and no further extension has been announced.
Since then further sponsor deals have been withdrawn with digital asset platform WhaleFin also having to pull out of a deal that had made the firm the shirt sleeve sponsor. According to Sky News there are positive talks going on for German financial service Allianz to be the next big sponsor.
The deal with Three is worth around £40m a year, £120m across the agreement, and there had been hopes of generating a deal worth more than that with the new sponsors. That has since been put at risk though with the poor season meaning European football is massively unlikely.
This could make the chances of getting an improved figure harder to negotiate with the groups involved outside of Allianz, though none of those are named. Chelsea refused to comment on the report whilst Allianz themselves said: "This is not an imminent deal for us."
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