Spurs sponsorship doesn’t look like Deal of the Century

It has now emerged that the 'Visit South Africa' sleeve logo will only make an appearance on full Spurs kit in the second year of the three-year agreement.

South African Tourism’s acting chief executive officer Themba Khumalo speaks at a press conference, 2 February 2023, in Sandton, justifying the body’s plans to sponsor Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Picture: Michel Bega/The Citizen

SA Tourism (SAT) acting CEO Themba Khumalo said sorry, not sorry, yesterday when he appeared before the parliamentary portfolio committee on tourism.

He apologised for his outburst last week on the controversy over the R900 million sponsorship of English football club Tottenham Hotspur – but then whined that he had done so out of frustration and anger after being targeted on social media.

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The whining was in evidence soon after, when presenting to the committee a slick PowerPoint presentation of the proposed deal, Khumalo said if the agreement was cancelled, it would send a message that SA Tourism “will have to advise all partners and potential partners we cannot do big deals”.

Cancel this and you’ll make us look bad. Boo, hoo… Actually, the deal already makes you look bad, Mr Khumalo. It has now emerged that the “Visit South Africa” sleeve logo will only make an appearance on full Spurs kit in the second year of the three-year agreement. The first year it will only be on training jerseys.

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So, how then, does SAT believe it will, in this first year alone, increase the numbers of people visiting South Africa by 8%, or more than 1.1 million arrivals?

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Not only that, elsewhere in the presentation, the club stipulates that the first year sleeve logo specifically excludes any “training wear used for Uefa competitions, Women’s Teams, Academy Teams, and any training wears old at retail.”

Although Spurs – with a claimed global following of 616 million fans – is certainly a major attraction, we wonder how many of those fans will watch training events?

And the agreement is hardly generous in sharing access to those fans, limiting SAT to just two direct e-mail offers to the club’s database and just two inclusions in club’s monthly digital newsletter.

This certainly doesn’t look like the Deal of the Century.

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