Chelsea Sign Barbados Deal and Restructure Club

Chelsea FC have secured a three-year deal with the Barbados Tourism Authority (BTA), to promote the island to audiences across North America, the Caribbean and the UK.

The Barclays Premier League club will also look to explore rolling out specific community football coaching programmes on the island and in the UK through its charity, the Chelsea Foundation. 

Ron Gourlay, Chelsea chief executive. said:  “This is a great opportunity for us, using our excellent and award-winning CSR programmes, to engage with fans in the Caribbean who have a real passion for Chelsea and the Premier League.”

Petra Roach, BTA’s vice-president of sales and marketing for the UK, added: “This partnership is much more than getting our Barbados message out to Chelsea fans on matchday. We want to harness the charitable spirit of the club and work together on some exciting community projects both in Barbados and the UK. Barbados and Chelsea have a natural synergy as we both strive to be the best in our respective fields. It fits perfectly with our theme for 2012, The Year of Sport; from grass roots to world class, and we are building upon Barbados’ already strong reputation for sporting events and activities.”

In other Chelsea news, the head of marketing Ben Wells has stepped down and former Diageo global category director Steve Cumming has joined the club as head of sponsorship for Europe, USA and South America to help to convert Chelsea’s growing global fanbase into revenue.

Cumming in part will replace some of Wells’s duties as Wells was also in charge of sponsorship during his six year tenure at the club. The head of marketing role will cease to exist under the new structure.

Chelsea has also appointed Adrian New as Chelsea’s managing director for Asia Pacific, another new role at the club.

New will implement Chelsea’s brand and commercial strategy, building on its already existing presence in the region, which was highlighted by its “Here to Play, Here to Stay” pre-season tour in Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Hong Kong.

Prior to joining Chelsea, New was senior vice president of the World Sport Group, responsible for all sponsorship sales revenue across the company and helping to build properties such as the Barclays Singapore Open and the OneAsia golf tournament.