5 months ago
212 Liverpool have struck a deal that will see them bank upwards of £10m and further capitalise on a lucrative commercial market.
As a brand, Liverpool are one of only a handful of teams with truly global reach. And this is arguably most pronounced in one particular region.
Liverpool are believed to have over 60million fans in Indonesia and have always treated the Southeast Asian country as a key commercial target.
They visited Jakarta in pre-season in 2013 and, after spending recent years in the US, Thailand and Hong Kong, will likely return at some point in the near future.
And now, the Reds have signed a new agreement that will make the most of their popularity in Indonesia.
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Liverpool have announced that they have enlisted Western Corporation and Kanmo Group as official retail partners in Indonesia.
The two companies, one of whom has industry-specific know-how in football and the other of whom is a retail management specialist, now have the distribution rights and will work in tandem to sell Liverpool-branded merchandise.
This includes both online and in-person retail. And the partnership will see Liverpool superstore open in Jakarta in the summer.
No financial data for the deal was made public but, in the scope of Liverpool’s annual commercial revenue of £272m, it is likely that this agreement will be worth £10m all told.
That will be made up of a base fee which the club will bank immediately, plus a cut of every unit sold by the joint venture.
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Sometimes the depth of feeling of an overseas fanbase for a European club can be overstated. But Indonesia’s affection for Liverpool is the real deal.
It goes beyond football too. The city of Liverpool is twinned Surabaya, the second largest city in Indonesia.
In a 2019 interview with Business Live, Chris Wren, director of Indonesia’s British Chamber of Commerce who also happens to be from Merseyside, described it as a “special relationship.”
“If Liverpool can position itself properly and target the right people, we can surely get more investment from Indonesia].”
It makes sense then that Liverpool, who are in something of a commercial arms race against their peers in the so-called Big Six, would look to the country as a goldmine.
As the deal was announced, Liverpool commercial chief Mike Cox said: “This latest partnership in Asia adds to our ambitious plans to grow our international presence in key markets.”
That is a strategy that has been baring fruit for years now.
And given that Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country with a growing population and economy, it is likely that Liverpool’s efforts in the nation will accelerate going forward.
