Arsenal and Liverpool recently agreed a deal with coffee giants, Lavazza, and their UK managing director has been speaking about how they decided upon the two clubs.

Arsenal and Liverpool entered into an agreement with Italian coffee masters, Lavazza, at the start of November, that sees the two clubs become official UK partners for the brand. The partnership will, according to Lavazza’s press release, “…unite the excellence of authentic Italian coffee with that of English top flight football. “

The deal, which has been agreed for a three-year period initially, will see both clubs serve Lavazza coffee at the ground, in the players’ lounge and at other key sales points throughout the venues.

So how did the deals come about?

“Lavazza started looking at football partnerships in earnest probably about two or three years ago, and what we realised was that football has changed – particularly in the UK,” David Rogers told Soccerex. “It’s no longer seen as being a sort of working-class sport. In fact, the offering to supporters has ‘premiumised’ [sic] no end.

“As such, we saw football, with its mass statistics for supporters and watching the game, as a huge opportunity to build on our sports strategy. We did quite a lot of research into the two clubs, Liverpool and Arsenal. The values the two clubs have was not lost on us. And there was a really important statistic that played a big role in this, which was that both clubs are actually quite often football fans’ second favourite clubs.

“They’ll watch Arsenal because they play great football – they don’t always win, but they love the brand of football – and Liverpool are also known for that fantastic type of football. Once we discovered that we were over the problems of: ‘Did we alienate Tottenham supporters, Chelsea supporters or Manchester United supporters?’ Both clubs actually showed us some fairly convincing statistics.

“We actually felt that through our expansion in the UK, we wanted one club that was based more in the south, in London, and one to use as a passport to expansion towards more of the northern part of the country – and Liverpool’s not the north, we know that, geographically.

“When that combined with the family values both clubs have, the history both clubs have, the flamboyance of the football, and matched with our family values and the way in which our coffee premiumises [sic] events, it came together in that perfect form.

“Coincidentally, both clubs realised at the same time that they needed to improve their coffee experience. So it fell together in this way.”

Arsenal commercial director Peter Silverstone said of the deal: “We sell close to two million tickets to Emirates Stadium each season, and now all visitors will be able to enjoy Lavazza’s quality coffee wherever they are in the ground.”

Carlo Colpo, Lavazza global head of marketing communication, added: “As part of our marketing strategy we are delighted to partner locally with Arsenal and Liverpool, two English top-flight teams ranked among the ‘Top 20 most valuable sports brands’ in the world (Powa Index 2018). Two teams that share with Lavazza the same passion for excellence, innovation and tradition.

“These multi-faceted partnerships will see select players from both clubs as protagonists of localised versions of the new Lavazza global advertising campaign, which will be premiered first in the UK market at the end of November.”

Billy Hogan, managing director and chief commercial officer at Liverpool, continued: “Lavazza is synonymous with excellence, tradition and passion for its coffee, in the same way that we are with football, so it’s a pleasure to be welcoming them to the Liverpool FC family.”