Mobile phone giant Vodafone Group Plc is ending a four-year shirt sponsorship deal with soccer club Manchester United, which is worth about 9.0 million pounds ($15.5 million) per year.
The world's largest mobile phone company by revenue and the Premier League soccer club said in a joint statement that the deal would be terminated two years early at the end of the 2005/2006 season.
"The Manchester United shirt is the most iconic in sport," said the club's commercial director Andy Anson on November 23. "The club feels that, in the current market, there is a genuine chance to attract significant additional investment."
He added that initial discussions with a number of "world class potential partners" had been very encouraging and that the club was confident of securing a new deal in the coming months.
Manchester United fans urged Vodafone at its annual investor meeting in July to end a sponsorship deal with US billionaire financier Malcolm Glazer, who seized control of 127-year-old Manchester United for 790 pounds earlier this year.
Glazer has infuriated fans who say he knows nothing about British soccer and will milk United's profits to pay back vast amounts of debt he used to buy it.