United's shirt sponsor AIG has run into serious financial troubles just days after West Ham's shirt sponsor went bust .
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Manchester United's agreement with AIG is the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in English football and was signed in April 2006 after Vodafone ended its £9 million-a-year deal.
The contract with AIG is worth around £14 million a year, with United confident that the company will be able to fulfill its commitment to the agreement.
On Friday, West Ham were forced to terminate their shirt sponsorship deal with XL Leisure Group following news that the holiday company had gone into administration and now the Insurance giant AIG has made an unprecedented approach to America's Federal Reserve seeking £22 billion in short-term financing.
The company was forced to request the cash in the wake of Lehman Brother's bankruptcy and the takeover of Merrill Lynch.
AIG's new chief executive, Robert Willumstad, was supposed to announce a restructuring plan later this month, but postponed it because of the uncertainty surrounding the company.
Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, said that he believes ‘we will see other major firms fail’.
He added: ‘We shouldn’t try to protect every single institution. The ordinary course of financial change has winners and losers.
