June 16 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has reportedly signed Chinese dairy products company Yili Group as a sponsor for its national team competitions for the 2021-24 cycle.
The deal will cover the 2023 Asian Cup, the AFC’s blue riband national team event that was expanded for the 2019 edition to 24 teams and is next being hosted in China.
Yili joins the AFC at Official Partner level, its top tier of sponsorship in a deal Sports Business is reporting to be worth nearly $30 million.
The AFC has just completed the first group round of Asian Qualifying for both the Qatar 2022 World Cup and 13 teams – Australia, China, Iraq, Iran, Japan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Syria, the UAE and Vietnam – for China 2023.
The AFC has also announced the 22 nations (plus four nations in play-offs) for the next round of Asian Cup qualifying to fill the final 11 slots. Qatar 2022 qualifying is now down to 12 nations (as above excluding Qatar) who will compete in two groups of six with the top two qualifying automatically.
Yili’s sponsorship will begin with the start of the next qualifying rounds which correspond with the start of the national team element of the AFC’s 2021-24 commercial rights cycle.
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