Sponsor Holds Back Shirt Release

BMI Baby
By Andrew Collins
July 24 2008

The new Cardiff Blues shirt still has no set release date, following the withdrawal of sponsorship from BMIbaby.com as the regions principle sponsor. The airline company has backed the Blues all of it’s regional life, but look set to pull out due to financial problems.

The shirts are all ready to be released, however are awaiting a new sponsorship package so that it can be officially launched donning a company name. It looks very likely that BMI will not be on the front of the 08-10 jerseys, while it's also emerged that last seasons shoulder sponsor, Firepower, has also pulled out, with the company going under.

Fortunately, a replacement for that has been found, in the shape of Severnside Recycling, who will be setting up a scheme labelled, ‘Turning the Blues Green'. Their logo and name will stretch across the top and back of the new shirt, just above the player names.

One possible replacement being mooted for the principle sponsor is EADS, an aeroplane manufacturer based in Toulouse, although they do have a security factory in Newport. The following extract is taken from their website, http://www.eads.com/

"The UK is a home market for EADS, Europe's leading aerospace and defence company. Our presence in the UK has historically been strong and will continue to expand into the future. With nearly 15,000 employees, we are firmly rooted in the UK's advanced technology industrial base. Today, EADS is among the UK's top five suppliers and makes a major contribution to the UK aerospace and defence industry with a British turnover of more than £2 billion."

Pictures of the 08-10 shirts have been posted on theArmsPark.co.uk's message boards already, despite an official release still being awaited. In case you haven't seen them, here they are below, many thanks to those who posted them originally.

Cardiff Blues Home 08-10 Cardiff Blues Away 08-10

Firstly, this shows the full home and away jersey, minus sponsor, that will be available to fans at around £50. The shirt design is, as expected, the same used by Ireland, South Africa, Scotland and Japan in the 2007 World Cup, while the ‘cerise' colour away shirt, isn't as offensive as first thought. Undoubtedly the best thing about the shirt is the return of blue and black as the home colours.

Cardif Blues Jersey 08-10

The above photo shows brothers Jamie and Nicky Robinson in the new playing shirts, the difference being the black meshing around the shoulders, which will only be available on the Armourfit version of the jersey, expect to pay around £75 for that.

At the moment, the shirt release is expected to be before August 7^th, although if no sponsor can be arranged by then, it may well be put back further. It wouldn't be the first time that Cardiff would go into a league campaign without a sponsor, should one fail to appear, in 1999, the FILA shirt was released without looking like a walking billboard, before Kintana stepped in to sponsor the shirt and North stand.

Sponsor Holds Back Shirt Release

Posted by: theArmsPark.co.uk (IP Logged)

Date: 24/07/2008 12:00

Sponsor Holds Back Shirt Release