BREAKING: Chelsea announce new shirt sponsor and “principal partner” | OneFootball

Chelsea have just announced a new “principal partner” in the form of IFS, an “industrial AI” company. They become our front of shirt sponsor for the rest of this season.

Friday evenings are typically where you bury bad news – making this interesting timing for Chelsea to announce a new “principal partner”.

Well, that’s just what they’ve done. The new ownership has been rightly battered for failing to find a long term, lucrative front of shirt sponsorship deal, and… they haven’t managed it. IFS industrial AI will be our “principal partner,” but their front of shirt sponsorship, for now, will only be until the end of the season. So don’t open the champagne just yet.

Chelsea make big claims about “statement of intent” with AI

A man with a headset waffles about AI.

“We are incredibly proud to partner with IFS and leverage their leading edge AI software to help propel the club to even greater success,” club president Jason Gannon is quoted as saying on the club’s official website.

“This partnership is a statement of intent to keep leading in this field, harnessing the opportunities advanced technology brings and unlocking the power of AI to improve everything we do on and off the pitch.”

Which is much the same as they said about “Infinite Athlete” a couple of years ago… whatever happened to them?

In other news…

One Chelsea player has turned down a new contract offered to them recently – we’re not sure who it was, but we have a good guess…

Enzo Fernandez and Moises Caicedo are at the front of the queue for new deals – unsurprising given their status in the squad. It will be very interesting to see where common ground is found in terms of their salary.

Check out the latest edition of Simon Phillips’ SPTC podcast here: