Football Shirt Culture.com

Bayern Munich and Deutsche Telekom AG are to continue their successful partnership into the future.

Europe's leading telecommunications company has extended its commitment as main and shirt sponsor of Germany's most successful club by a further three years until 2013, the companies announced at an event on Tuesday at the Allianz Arena in Munich.

The annual sponsorship fee is believed to be around €25 million, outstripping the deals English giants Manchester United and Liverpool signed earlier this year, though Bayern general manager Uli Hoeness said that the deal was "strongly performance-related.

"I'm proud we've been able to secure the commitment of our valued partners at Deutsche Telekom for the next few years," commented Bayern general manager Uli Hoeneß. Telekom and Bayern first joined forces in 2002. "The point of view we share with our partner is that a sponsorship agreement like this must offer significant benefits to both parties. In this respect, our work together has been extremely successful," Hoeneß continued.

Performance-related deal

The monetary aspect to the new agreement will remain undisclosed, although Hoeneß revealed that the "good deal" with Deutsche Telekom was "strongly performance-related." Should Bayern "not feature on the international stage for an occasional period," the club would "make concessions", Hoeneß said. On the other hand, the sums involved "will go up if we're extremely successful internationally. There could be icing on the cake."

"The extension of our partnership serves clear strategic goals," said Christian P. Illek, T-Home board member and T-Mobile Deutschland managing director (marketing). The commitment to Bayern was "an important component in developing and implementing our future-oriented multimedia service provision for a digital and networked life."