Cyprus logo for German soccer aces

GERMAN football club FC Cologne has come up with a new kind of shirt sponsorship deal.

According to German website Spiegel Online, the club, which has recently been promoted into the Bundesliga, will promote not a company or a product, but an entire country – Cyprus.

The website states that Satena, a Cypriot group of investors involved in various building projects, wish to establish “higher-quality tourism” on the island.

The group beat off competition from trading group, REWE, and the Kaufhof department store in the race to sponsor the team. Satena is rumoured to have secured a deal which will see them pay FC Cologne 4.35 million euros per season.

The deal will ensure a close co-operation between the club and the island. As well as probably having the word Cyprus emblazoned across the team’s shirts and on perimeter fencing, FC Cologne will set up a winter training camp on the island, with Cypriot football coaches sent to Cologne for advanced training tips.

A special travel agency will also be set up inside Cologne’s RheinEnergieStadion, offering fans trips to Cyprus at discounted prices.

It is hoped that the agreement will see the number of German holidaymakers to Cyprus double to over 300,000 per year.

Antigoni Louca, a spokeswoman with the Cyprus Tourist Organisation (CTO), said “this is a very good way to market Cyprus as it will promote our island to possibly millions of people. The CTO is in favour of sports tourism and invest in much more than just sun and sea.”

According to FC Cologne’s press and PR officer, Oliver Bueser, full details of the sponsorship deal will be released later this week.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.