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Aston Villa have defied the market trend by seeing a drop in kit sponsorship revenues with their switch from Genting Casinos to Dafabet.com. Last year, under Genting, the club netted £8 million, whereas they'll only be getting £5 million for their Dafabet sponsorship this year. It's a bit hard to put this into perspective, to be honest. On one hand, that's a 37.5% drop in sponsorship revenue. On the other hand, £3 million really isn't all that much for a large club like Aston Villa. To put that in perspective, it's slightly more than what we paid for Aleksander Tonev.
And, to be realistic, the drop in sponsorship fee should not be unexpected. Aston Villa have spent the past two seasons battling relegation, and are not the sure bet that they once were. If Paul Lambert's plan goes as expected, I would think we will see Aston Villa reverse this trend in the next couple of seasons.
Elsewhere around the EPL, sponsorship money generally rose. Newcastle and Sunderland were the only other clubs who saw losses. Arsenal renegotiated their contract with Fly Emirates to get a cool £24.5 million extra in their coffers. That, unlike £3 million, is a significant chunk of change. Just imagine what the Gunners will do with that in the transfer market.