Technology company Infinite Athlete has been ratified by the Premier League as Chelsea’s new main shirt sponsor in a one-season deal, having satisfied the league’s compliance criteria.
Although still to be officially unveiled to the media, Infinite Athlete’s social media account alluded to a report on the impending announcement yesterday afternoon. The company’s ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) account also commented last night on Chelsea’s Carabao Cup match against Brighton & Hove Albion.
SportBusiness understands that the Premier League compliance department, made up of legal experts and forensic accountants, was primarily concerned with investigating the ‘related party’ aspects of the deal.
The concerns were thought to centre on Clearlake Capital, which owns about 60 per cent of Chelsea, and shares joint control and equal governance of the club with Chelsea chairman Todd Boehly.
Clearlake Capital has links with the private equity firm Silver Lake, which is a backer of Infinite Athlete but also holds an 18-per-cent stake in Manchester City parent company City Football Group. Both ventures are investors in the e-commerce company Fanatics and have been linked with mooted co-investments in other companies, such as payment software firm ACI Worldwide, earlier this year.
It has also been reported that the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which owns Newcastle United, has billions of pounds of assets managed by Clearlake.
A source with knowledge of the compliance procedure told SportBusiness that the Premier League paid particular attention to the related party concerns because of ongoing investigations into Manchester City for alleged breaches of Premier League financial rules, including some alleged related-party sponsorships, and limitations imposed on Newcastle United’s sponsorship activities related to its Saudi ownership.
Should the Infinite Athlete deal later be found to have broken Premier League rules, it would not only invite complaints from City and Newcastle United, the source said, but undermine the Premier League’s financial fair play strategy.
SportBusiness further understands that the league needed to establish that another business named ‘Infinite Athlete’ was not part of the company that will brand the Chelsea shirtfronts for the rest of this season.
The Georgia-based Infinite Athlete is a small business selling hormone replacement, medical weight loss and anti-ageing therapies – and has no links to the San Francisco-based technology company.
The Chelsea main shirt sponsor is the parent of another Chelsea sponsor, the sports video and data company Tempus Ex Machina, which acquired the injury analytics company Biocore in August to create the umbrella Infinite Athlete brand.
“We created Infinite Athlete to bring key technologies together to improve all aspects of sports – the game, the athlete and the fan experience,” said Charlie Ebersol, chief executive of Infinite Athlete.
As exclusively reported by SportBusiness, Chelsea was at one stage in discussions with betting brand Stake.comabout a controversial front-of-shirt sponsorship deal. The discussions came about after a deal with an undisclosed brand from the crypto sector fell through at a late stage when the club demanded a large proportion of the fee up front due to concerns about the volatility of the crypto industry.
The Stake.com deal failed to progress after the Chelsea Supporters’ Trust wrote an open letter to club owner Todd Boehly criticising the proposed deal with online casino and betting company.
It also emerged that the Premier League blocked an earlier proposed deal between Chelsea and the Paramount+ streaming platform because it would upset the league’s broadcast partners.
The Daily Mail reported a deal with the streaming service was judged not to be permitted under the Deed of License, the contract between the league and its clubs, which governs broadcasting and commercial deals.