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A Dundalk-based sports rights broker, Winlink Marketing, lost a 1. 1 million pound (1. 2 million euro) lawsuit in the UK against Liverpool Football Club after insisting it was guilty of filing for a consumer to the club, resulting in a five million pound endorsement deal.
Winlink Marketing is owned by Fintan Farrell and Sinead O’Reilly, founded in Northern Ireland. He has acted as an intermediary for several years, presenting potential sponsors to professional football clubs in the UK and Europe.
The company stated at the High Court in London that it had submitted betVictor betting company to Liverpool FC in 2013 after the club said it was looking for a betting sponsor.
Although BetVictor showed up in early 2014 to pay the club between 800,000 and 900,000 euros per year for 3 years, no deal like Liverpool materialized to stay with its current betting sponsor.
The club told the Superior Court that an upcoming agreement had been initiated with BetVictor through its former partner sales officer, Raffaella Valentino, and BetVictor’s executive leader Andreas Meinrad, who had a pre-existing friendship.
This agreement for BetVictor to sponsor its educational kit announced through Liverpool FC in the summer of 2016.
A few days later, Fintan Farrell sent an email to Jonathan Kane, Liverpool’s director of foreign business development, congratulating the club on the deal and asking for top points to bill the Winlink Marketing “commission”.
The Irish company told the court that, because it had joined BetVictor in 2013, the 2016 sponsorship agreement was an agreement applicable under a contract between Winlink Marketing and Liverpool FC.
But the opinion on the pace of the case said that the Irish company failed to prove that it had been the catalyst for Liverpool’s signing of the 2016 contract with BetVictor.
“It is transparent that the driving force of the proposal and the possible final touch of the transaction were two difficult points: first, the relationship between Mrs Valentino and Mr. Meinrad and, second, the very strong business reasons that led BetVictor to close the transaction,” Judge Mark Pelling said.