Sydney FC Reaps Financial Benefits of Del Piero Signing

Sydney FC is enjoying the financial benefits of the signing of Italian superstar Alessandro Del Piero.

The club has sold more memberships than ever before and has had a great deal of interest from sponsors.

“In terms of memberships we’ve beaten the record, which was 7500, and I’m confident we’ll go on to beat 8000,” CEO, Tony Pignata, said. “I’m happy with that in terms of the market in Sydney and there’s still 10 days until our first home game. If we get some good performances straight away we might see another surge hopefully.”

“We do have 10,000 junior members who are eligible to come, of course, but we don’t count those in the overall numbers. Our corporate hospitality has already reached its budget for the year and we haven’t played a game yet, and we sold out the business lunch.

“I’ve had sponsors calling me – there are a few properties left, like a community partner and a coaches sponsor.

“But we have a sponsor for the W-League, front and back of shirt, and at the youth league, and the signage is pretty much all gone.”

Pignata said the next objective for the club is to improve on the poor attendances that it has experienced in recent seasons.

“The key thing is to drive our attendances now for our home games,” Pignata said. “So far, certainly in terms of that first home game against Newcastle on October 13, it’s looking very positive.

“We’ve pre-sold more than 8000, which is one of the highest figures for a game we’ve played outside the finals, and our target is to beat the record non-finals crowd of 33,000 against Melbourne Victory in 2008.”{jcomments on}