LIME pulls out of Premier League talks

Jermaine Lannaman, Gleaner Writer

Telecommunications giants LIME will not be the title sponsor of the Premier League this season.

LIME had been in dialogue with the Premier League Clubs Association (PLCA) regarding sponsorship of the National Premier League (NPL).

This followed an earlier announcement by their competitors, Digicel, that they would no longer be sponsoring the competition.

However, LIME issued a release yesterday through its managing director, Garry Sinclair, saying that while interested, it was not in a position to fund the venture at the moment.

"We were in discussions with the board of the PLCA about the possibility to helm sponsorship of the league," said Sinclair.

"However, after evaluating the proposal and our capacity to execute at the level we believe the league requires and deserves, we concluded that a partnership with the PLCA would not be possible in the current financial year."

Sinclair added: "We must stress that football is still a big deal to us. So our focus and investments are unchanged as we continue to activate our $60-million, three-year investment in the LIME/INSPORT Primary League, as well as our $15-million three-year sponsorship of the St Catherine Football Association."

Chairman of the PLCA, Edward Seaga, says they will now turn their attention to selling reconfigured sponsorship packages into smaller, more affordable deals, which should allow the NPL to start as scheduled come the end of August.

Fresh discussions

"Since our discussions we have reconfigured our sponsorship proposals into smaller packages and, as we speak, we are having fresh discussions with a number of companies," said Seaga.

"They (LIME) did their best, but did not have the funds to do what is needed to execute the league at a high level. It is a similar situation to other sponsors who made submissions before them.

"It is not cheap to sponsor the Premier League," Seaga pointed out. "However, having said that, it is considered a productive sponsorship, based on a business study that was done, it is worthy of the amount that it requires."

The new sponsorship deals, according to Seaga, focus on a mixture of options, including multiple title, shirts and drinks sponsors. These, he said, could also be supplemented by multiple shorts and socks sponsor proposals, as is done in other countries, depending on negotiations.

This is a different thrust to that of previous NPL sponsorship proposals, which primarily focused on title sponsorship packages, as was the case with Digicel, who sponsored the league over the past three seasons.