Progressive Hong Kong football club Kitchee have claimed a coup of the local game, by persuading one of the world's leading multinational corporations to become their sponsors.
Japanese manufacturer Canon have agreed a deal that, subject to performance-related conditions, could be worth $4 million between now and the end of the 2006-07 season, which Kitchee chief executive Ken Ng Kin claimed could be the biggest ever signed by a Hong Kong club.
'It is probably the largest commercial sponsorship deal in the history of local professional football,' he said, before arguing that the real value is the credibility that the support brings.
'[They] have joined with us, not through some previous relationship or friendship, but because they see the commercial value of what we are doing,' Ng said.
'It's important that someone of the stature of Canon believes in the value of our programme. This is helping us take concrete steps towards producing the next generation of Hong Kong stars. Together we're helping put football on the right track.'
The Japanese giants will have their names on Kitchee's chests and will advertise their products on perimeter boards at the club's matches, but have also entered a scheme to provide up to 10 scholarships of $18,000 a year to help support the most promising 13 and 14 year-olds entering the club's youth development programme.