Football Manager is to become Watford FC’s latest sponsor, following a new partnership between the club, SEGA and Sports Interactive announced today. Watford FC become the second team to partner with SI, joining AFC Wimbledon (whose kit can be seen above) in having the management sim’s logo emblazoned ‘pon both home and away kits. Watford were last month taken over by Granada and Udinese owners the Pozzo family, ensuring the club’s safety in the immediate future. Bit of real world football knowledge, right there.
Watford, whose captainship has recently been handed to Gianfranco Zola despite previous captain Sean Dyche having led the club to its highest league position in four years in his debut season, said in a statement on their website: “All three parties are excited by the partnership and the positive message it will send throughout the football industry.”
Mile Jacobson, Sports Interactive’s MD, added: “The Pozzo family have shown at Granada and Udinese that success can be achieved by strong financial management and a dedication to talent development – a strategy which, coincidentally, also pays dividends in Football Manager. We’re very much looking forward to achieving great things together.
“The opportunity came to us and SEGA to increase this relationship at a time when we were discussing our commercial plans for FM13 (which will be officially “announced” at the end of August) and our 20th anniversary of making games and it fitted the bill for exactly what we were looking for.”
He went on to assure that the new partnership with Watford, whose grounds of Vicarage Road are shared with rugby union side Saracens FC, will not impact on their existing partnership with AFC Wimbledon. “We are incredibly proud to have been involved with Wimbledon since the second day of their inception,” assures Jacobson, “and intend to be their partner for as long as they’ll have us!”
Watford Rovers was formed in 1881 by Henry Grover.