It's been revealed that Stake are Everton's new shirt sponsors with the online casino becoming the ninth company to have their logo emblazoned on the Blues shirts. Given that the firm, who already sponsor Watford, are an online casino, it's a potentially controversial decision coming two years after chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale declared that "in an ideal world", the club would not be sponsored by a gambling company as they prepared to cut their ties with SportPesa but here’s a potted history of Everton’s shirt sponsors over the years.
The Blues went over a century without a sponsors logo on their shirt between 1878-1979 and for long periods they didn’t even have a club crest on their shirts but 100 years after they first adopted the name Everton, after previously being St Domingo’s, they took the plunge into football’s new commercial world. Danish meat manufacturers Hafnia had the honour of becoming Everton’s first sponsor and their logo was on their shirts for both the 1984 FA Cup final win – the club’s first trophy for 14 years – and during the 1984/85 League Championship season.
Curiously though, despite this association with one of Goodison’s golden ages, Hafnia’s products, including corned beef; pork roll; jellied veal and ox tongue were never even available for UK customers and dissolving soon after their deal with Everton ended, their name was passed on to Tyson Foods – but again no link to ‘Iron Mike.’ With Everton back in the spotlight in 1985 having secured the title and the Cup-Winners’ Cup – what would prove to be their only European trophy so far – they managed to land a major global brand in the shape of their decade-long association with NEC (Nippon Electric Company), headquartered in the Minato ward in the Japanese capital of Tokyo.
ADAM JONES: Farhad Moshiri's open Everton letter is vital first step but cannot be the last
READ MORE: Moshiri breaks silence with apology to Everton supporters and spending admission
An IT and network solutions firm, they were the world’s largest semiconductor company at the time as well as being one of the biggest manufacturers of PCs. Everton’s last League Championship was won on their watch and their final game as shirt sponsors was the 1-0 success over Manchester United in the 1995 FA Cup final – the Blues last major trophy to date.
In 1995 Everton struck a £4million deal with Danka, whose logo had already been seen by Merseyside sporting crowds earlier that year when it had been emblazoned on the silks of jockey Jason Titley as he rode 40/1 shot Royal Athlete to victory in the Grand National at Aintree. A provider of office equipment such as photocopiers, printers and fax machines based out of St Petersburg, Florida, they cut their ties with the Blues two years later, switching to Formula One racing team Arrows, who had just moved to Oxfordshire and acquired reigning F1 champion driver Damon Hill.
Mobile phone operator One2One became Everton’s new sponsors in 1997 and launched their initial three-year deal with summer recruits Slaven Bilic and Gareth Farrelly showcasing their products on the Goodison turf. Their first season with the Blues featured the embarrassment of an ‘upside down’ design on the players’ shirts after an eagle-eyed fan spotted that the design worn by the first team was different than the jerseys being sold to supporters.
Umbro who manufactured the kit were forced to act quickly and declared that it was the players’ kit that was wrong and the thousands of replica shirts that were right. Everton only survived relegation on the final day of the 1997/98 season, with Kopites having previously mocked them with ‘Gone2one’ taunts (English football’s second tier was called Division One at this time) but the company stayed with the Blues for an additional two years until 2002 when they rebranded themselves as T-Mobile.
Everton’s £2.5million deal with Chinese electronics firm Kejian not only resulted in Mandarin writing on the Blues shirts but the acquisition of 2002 World Cup China international pair Li Weifeng and Li Tie for David Moyes’ squad. The former, a centre-back, turned out just twice before returning home, but the latter proved to be a competent midfielder before a broken leg hampered his progress.
Everton stayed in the Far East for their next sponsors, Chang, Thailand’s largest beverage company whose main product is lager. The 13-year-association would prove to be the longest shirt sponsorship in the club’s history with new deals struck in 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2014. Everton and Chang also worked in close partnership to help victims of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami which affected Thailand and many parts of the Pacific region.
In 2017, SportsPesa, who billed themselves as “Africa’s leading Gaming Platform”, became Everton’s shirt sponsors. Moving their European headquarters to the Royal Liver Building on the city’s waterfront which had recently been purchased by Everton’s majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri, their association also saw the Blues face East African club opposition three times for the SportPesa Trophy.
The first addition, featuring Prodigal Son Wayne Rooney’s return to his boyhood club after 13 years at Manchester United, saw Everton defeat Kenyan side Gor Mahia 2-1 in Tanzania’s National Stadium in Dar es Salaam. The following season, Gor Mahia came to Goodison Park and were thrashed 4-0 by a Blues shadow squad in November before Marco Silva’s side suffered the ignominy of a 2019 penalty shoot-out defeat to minnows Kariobangi Sharks after a 1-1 draw at the Moi International Sports Centre in Kasarani, Nairobi.
However, in September 2019, SportPesa, halted operations in Kenya after a rise in tax on betting stakes with Everton confirming their early parting of the ways in February the following year, stating: “This has been a difficult decision but one that allows us to best deliver on our commercial plan and to grasp the new opportunities now open to us.” Since September 2017, in line with a relaxing of Premier League regulations, between September 2017 and the end of the 2019/20 season, Everton also carried Angry Birds as a secondary shirt sponsor on the left sleeve of shirts but this has been blank again since the deal expired.
Everton confirmed Cazoo as their shirt sponsor in June 2020, signing a three-year deal with the online car retailer believed to be worth £9.6million per annum. Cazoo will continue to sponsor Aston Villa next season but back in March this year it was confirmed that the Blues had chosen to activate a break clause in their deal a year early.
