A Battle Between the Best and Worst Shirt Sponsors

Throughout football history, there have been many different shirts and shirt sponsors for thousands of football clubs throughout the world. From advertisements for technology companies to automakers, many different clubs have had some very famous shirt sponsors, and some of the kits have become world renowned.

However, there also have been some terrible shirt sponsor deals throughout the years, many of which were companies that had financial problems, or just had a bad name to put on the shirt from the start.

However in this year's Champions League final on May 27, we are going to see a battle between Barcelona and Manchester United, and it will also be a great battle between the best shirt sponsor and worst shirt sponsor in all of football.

Best Shirt Sponsor

Barcelona has had only one shirt in their entire club's history, and that is UNICEF, which is an organization that provides emergency food and health care to children in countries that had been devastated by a disaster of some kind.

In a five year deal with UNICEF starting in 2006, Barcelona would give 1.9 Million US Dollars to UNICEF to help with UNICEF's humanitarian efforts, and support their efforts to help children throughout the world.

Because of all of this, UNICEF is an organization that helps kids everywhere on this planet, and have also helped save many lives, and is a great shirt sponsor for Barcelona.

Worst Shirt Sponsor

Manchester United have had three shirt sponsors in their club's history, and the most recent one belongs to American International Group (AIG).

When this deal was completed in 2006, it gave United the most lucrative shirt deal in history, as it would bring in over 14 million Euro's a year to Man Utd, and received high praise by many members of the press.

Everything was working well for United until 2008, when AIG needed a major financial bailout from the United States government after their credit ranking was downgraded, and was given an 85 Billion dollar bailout from the US Government, which was the highest ever bailout for a private company in American history.

However, after all of this, AIG retained their sponsorship deal with Manchester United, which outraged many people, and caused people to want the company's name to be removed from the jersey.

In 2009, it got even worse for United after the news that AIG was going to pay their executives hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses, and that caused people to want United to get rid of the AIG logo as soon as possible.

However, on January 21, Man Utd announced that their deal with AIG would end in May of 2010, and they would start to look for a new sponsor as soon as possible.

Because of all of the economic problems started by AIG over the last year, this makes AIG a terrible shirt sponsor for Manchester United, and they will thankfully get rid of AIG sometime during the next year.

Finally, you have seen my take on who are the best and worst shirt sponsors in the world of football and why. Also, its great that these two giants are playing each other in the Champions League final in Rome, as this could become a matchup of Good vs Evil based on the companies name on the shirt.

If you have any feelings about this article or these two teams, please leave a comment at the bottom of the page. Thanks!