Jersey Mike’s? New EFL Trophy sponsors are among football’s worst ever | OneFootball

You know the EFL Trophy? That’s right, the competition that’s been denigrated to within an inch of its life, making it the most disrespected tournament in English football. Yep that one. Well guess what, it’s got a shiny new sponsorship name.

Drum roll please as American sandwich makers Jersey Mike’s have paid actual money to sponsor the EFL Trophy. An apparent ‘household name in the United States and Canada’ has been printed on the ribbons meaning the Jersey Mike Trophy will now be fought for/encumber the EFL this season.

It is not the first time the fifth (?) biggest trophy in English domestic football has been self-ridiculed with a stupid name from a corporate overlord.

Fans of a certain vintage will know this particular B-rate tournament as the Johnson’s Paint Trophy and that 2007-2016 period is probably the last time it had any shred of credibility.

After that, a rebrand of the tournament saw it go from the Football League Trophy to the EFL Trophy and with it, 16 Premier League and Championship Under-21 sides were permitted to enter. Hang on, I’m just looking through and I can’t quite see where in the EFL Manchester City U21s play? What do you mean they don’t? How can they be in the EFL Trophy? Why am I being forced out of the board meeting?

Since the EFL caved and let Premier League teams give their kids a run-out, nobody has taken the competition seriously and the sponsorships have matched that.

Checkatrade took over in 2016 before the attractively named Leasing.com became the name on the trophy but it became a whole new level of embarrassment when Papa Johns became the official sponsor in 2020, making it known as The Pizza Trophy. At the same time, they became “official pizza of the EFL”, which was a weight off all our minds.

Vertu Trophy had a run for a couple of years and now Jersey Mike’s Subs has taken over on a five-year deal, a real blow for Subway we are sure. Let me ask you, have you ever in your life seen a Jersey Mike’s? Oh and the founder was called Peter. Everything is a lie.

The EFL’s statement on the sponsorship was about as nauseating as a Steven Bartlett LinkedIn post.

“The blockbuster partnership will run until the end of the 2030/31 season and comes just as Jersey Mike’s prepares to make its debut in the UK, with a flagship first restaurant on Argyll Street off Oxford Circus in London later this year,” it read.

So they are sponsoring a nationwide competition when there is in fact just one restaurant that’s not even open yet? And who on earth decides to go to Oxford Circus for dinner?

EFL chief executive Trevor Birch continued in the same vein by saying: “The Jersey Mike’s Trophy has an important place in the football calendar.” Be honest with us and say whether you could even name who is the current holder of the trophy? No? It’s Luton.

The EFL trophy is of course not alone in having s**t sponsors.

In the late 1990s, the Full Members’ Cup had the attractive name of the Zenith Data Systems Cup, making it seem more like a tournament of who can hack a computer system the quickest rather than football. Little surprise then the competition folded three years later.

Before that, the competition was named after Simod, an Italian sportswear company that is not exactly Nike or Adidas. It’s bankrupt now having declared a debt of €50m in 2015.

There is something quite nostalgic about Milk being the official sponsor of the League Cup back in the ‘80s (we rank them all here). It wasn’t a corporate overlord trying to sell you crypto, but it is still a terrible name for a competition.

It was the last time the trophy was sponsored by anything remotely good for you as it moved from a betting company to Coca-Cola to beer to a credit card, back to beer before the current sponsor of Carabao who have a 12-year deal, which is presumably the same number of cans they sell a year.

Rubbish names are not confined to England either and Scotland, which always seems to be pleasingly innocent in comparison to the commercialised world south of the border, had its equivalent branded as the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafer Challenge Cup and if you asked us whether we want that or a Jersey Mike’s, it’s an easy answer.

One of the weirder examples north of the border was when the Scottish government sponsored the cup from 2008 to 2010. Presumably a current English equivalent would have Everton automatically in every final.

The 2016 Scottish Challenge Cup was officially known as the Petrofac Training Cup and the Scots also had the CIS Insurance Cup for a period.

On the continent, Denmark teams fought for the DONG Cup to kick off the 21st Century which is at least easier to spell than the official name of Landspokalturneringen.

Japan has had the YBC Levain Cup named after a biscuit brand which seems very EFL Trophy while Australians have fought for the Westfield FFA Cup.

In 2019, Northern Ireland cashed in on a popular TV show by announcing their new trophy the Sadler’s Peaky Blinders Irish Cup and they have previously had the Samuel Gelston’s Irish Whiskey Irish Cup. You may be thinking that an alcohol sponsor was surely back in the ’90s or the ’00s. Nope, it was three years ago.

The EFL Trophy then is not alone in having awful, overly corporate sponsors. Just be thankful the Premier League ditched a title sponsor and we’re not stuck with the CryptoX1000 Premier League trophy.