Chelsea Players Against Stoke City in 2014
Image by @cfcunofficial via flickr

A History of Chelsea Kit Sponsors as Blues Close In On New £60 Million a Year Deal

It was a tiny detail, but one that eagle-eyed observers would have noticed.

As Chelsea romped to a 3-0 victory in the FIFA Club World Cup final and secured themselves an £80 million payday, they did so in a plain blue kit.

That 2025/26 strip is quintessentially Chelsea, with its solid blue colourway and red/white side vents. But notable by its absence, as it was at the Club World Cup, is a kit sponsor.

This is nothing new for Blues fans, who witnessed their heroes play out the 2024/25 campaign without any corporate branding on the front of their shirts.

Was that a moralistic decision to eschew the capitalism taking over the beautiful game? Erm, no… the opposite, actually. According to reports, Chelsea were unhappy that the highest bids to be the main shirt sponsor would only fetch £40 million a season.

So they decided to hang fire, hoping that Champions League qualification would enable them to secure a more lucrative deal. Winning the Club World Cup in front of a global audience has been the cherry on the cake.

Now, according to The Telegraph, the bidding floor has been raised to £60 million per year… with Chelsea thought to be closing in on a completed deal.

Blues fans of an older vintage will remember when the team played in a plain blue short anyway, however that all changed in 1983 when Chelsea signed a trailblazing sponsorship deal with Gulf Air.

Here’s a chronological look at each of Chelsea’s kit sponsors over the past four decades.

Gulf Air (1983-84)

It was a rather unexpected link-up in the days before Middle Eastern nations took much of an interest in English football.

But yes, Chelsea’s first-ever kit sponsorship deal was with Gulf Air, the national airline of Bahrain.

This was one of the first sponsorship agreements in English football between a club and an international company; the money raised vital to helping Chelsea survive their closest brush with financial Armageddon.

Simod (1986/87)

The Gulf Air deal lasted just one season, with Chelsea then playing the next few campaigns without a front-of-shirt sponsor.

But then, stepping into the breach for 1986/87, was Simod, a little-known Italian sportswear company.

They would even sponsor the Full Members Cup, which was a domestic cup competition played while English clubs were banned from continental events – the Simod Cup, as it was briefly known between 1987 and 1989.

Commodore (1987-93)

Then along came one of Chelsea’s longest and most enduring sponsorship agreements.

Younger readers won’t remember Commodore, but they were responsible for the PlayStation of the late 1980s and early 1990s – gamers experiencing the sheer terror of hoping that their Commodore 64 game cassettes would load without issue.

According to reports, Commodore’s front-of-shirt sponsorship agreement with Chelsea was the most lucrative ever penned in English football at the time: an estimated £1.25 million exchanging hands.

Amiga (1993/94)

Commodore produced a range of computers known as Amiga, taking the stratospheric leap from cassettes to floppy disks.

To coincide with the launch of the Amiga CD32 in 1993, Commodore requested that Chelsea carry the Amiga branding on the front of their shirts instead.

However, by 1994, the deal was over: Commodore were forced to declare bankruptcy after being squeezed out of the gaming market by innovators such as the Sega Mega Drive.

Coors (1994/97)

So by 1994, computers were out and the beers were in.

Chelsea penned a three-year sponsorship agreement with Coors, a North American brewery best known for their eponymous lager and its Coors Light sibling.

Today, drinkers may be familiar with Coors’ brands Carling and Staropramen, while things came nicely full circle earlier this year when Chelsea signed a deal for Coors to be the club’s ‘official beer partner’.

Autoglass (1997-2001)

When the original deal with Coors came to an end, Chelsea welcomed car windscreen firm Autoglass into the breach.

The agreement was thought to have brought £6 million into Chelsea’s coffers over a four-year period, with some of the kits from this era often cited as the best of the Blues’ contemporary age.

Emirates (2001-05)

Following in the footsteps of Gulf Air was Fly Emirates, who sponsored Chelsea between 2001 and 2005.

The deal was worth a staggering £24 million – the second most lucrative in English football at the time, behind Manchester United’s hook-up with Vodafone.

Samsung (2005-2015)

Cesc Fabregas Playing for Chelsea Against Swansea
Image by @cfcunofficial via flickr

The longest-lasting sponsorship agreement that the Blues have ever had was their decade-long deal with Samsung.

Renewed several times, it was the telecommunications firm that decided to end the contract in 2015 – citing a desire to lower their costs.

Yokohama (2015-2020)

Japanese motoring firm Yokohama paid Chelsea around £40 million per season to procure front-of-shirt sponsorship.

The Blues won many trophies while baring the Yokohama name, but the deal came to a natural end in 2020.

Three (2020-23)

Stepping into the breach was telecommunications outfit Three, who also paid £40 million a season to have their branding on the Chelsea shirt.

However, that deal hit the fan in 2022, when Three asked to be removed from Chelsea’s shirt and training ground after Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Infinite Athlete, DAMAC (2023-24)

Since the Three deal ended, Chelsea have had temporary sponsorship deals.

Infinite Athlete was the first during the 2023/24 season, before they were followed by Dubai property firm DAMAC.

Finally, for the 2025/25 season, it appears as if Chelsea will revert back to having a fulltime shirt sponsor… hopefully they bring their chequebook!