Rooney. United's favourite whine.
There are many things to admire about the Chilean wine company Concho Y Toro. Their Casillero del Diablo (‘Devils Cellar’) range has achieved ubiquity whilst maintaining quality and they market their wines with fun and innovation – they’ve even got an iPhone app for heaven’s sake!
Furthermore, when The Wine Society chose Concho Y Toro to provide their Chilean own label wines then you know that this is one global corporation you can trust.
But then they go and ruin it all and sign a deal with Manchester United. Of all the teams in the world it had to be “them”.
The official announcement of this new ‘partnership’ will take place in August at a press conference in Old Trafford.
As well as supplying their wines to the stadiums lounges, boxes and bars they’ll also become fully paid up members of the ‘prawn sandwich brigade’ by getting themselves some corporate hospitality at home games. TV viewers will no doubt see various wines pinging around the digital board advertising.
Apparently this is the fourth deal signed by the Manchester Utd in the last three months. They now have twenty partnership agreements and commercial revenue has topped £200m since the opening of its sales office in London three years ago.
If you’re a naive idealist like me and believe in the purity of both sport and the vine then the following quote from the club’s Commercial Director, Richard Arnold, will make you despair:
“We are proud to welcome Concha y Toro to our family of sponsors. The quality of their products and the synergy of the brands, particularly Casillero del Diablo – mean that they are a natural partner for us to seek. We are particularly excited to work with them to bring the partnership to life for our millions of fans around the world.”
I wonder what Sir Alex, a well known oenophile, secretly thinks of such utter drivel from Dick.
I thought Richard Arnold worked for GMTV, isn’t he a camp entertainments reporter?
I bow to your knowledge of camp entertainment reporters.