March 8 – The Europa League is widely regarded as the poorer sister of the Champions League but UEFA is taking every opportunity to promote its partnerships in the competition.
Last summer UEFA secured one of their long-standing partners, South Korean car manufacturer Kia Motors, as an Official Partner for the Europa League for three seasons from the start of the 2018/19 championship through to the Europa League final in 2021.
At the Geneva motor show this week, an inauguration event was attended by representatives from both parties with former Argentina international Hernan Crespo brought in as the special guest.
“Each season the competition reaches a television audience of one billion viewers, 45% of which live outside of Europe, so we value partners such as Kia Motors that have such a great reach,” said Peter Willems, Head of Marketing Activities & Sponsorship at UEFA Events SA.
Yong-Won Cho, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Kia Motors Corporation said the partnership “celebrates the start of a new and exciting era for Kia Motors and UEFA. “
The Europa League involves clubs from 55 national associations and attracts a global cumulative TV audience of 980 million across all programming making it the world’s largest professional club football competition, according to UEFA.
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