READING FC no longer play at the Madejski Stadium – instead they’ll be kicking off the new Championship season on home turf at the Select Car Leasing stadium on 14 August 2020.
The Reading broker, which is located adjacent to Reading FC, has extended its Principal Partner support for the Royals to include stadium naming rights.
The directors of Select Car Leasing, Mark Tongue and James O’Malley, have been lifelong fans of the club, and say it’s a dream come true for them.
Writing on LinkedIn (see below), Tongue said:
17 years ago myself and James O’Malley set up an unknown car leasing brokerage in the spare room of a rented house. Today we are delighted to announce our continued support for Reading Football Club in its 150th year, through the renaming of the Stadium for the next 10 years. This has only been made possible by everyone who has been involved in the company, our employees both past and present, our truly valued suppliers and partners and of course all our amazing customers, without whom this would never have happened.
O’Malley added in the same video report:
We got the opportunity to sponsor a boyhood club of mine and it’s a dream come true. When we started the company, we used to joke that one day we would be on the front of Reading FC’s shirts. And wow! here we are 17 years later and we’ve done it.
In June Select announced it was committing to a three-year front-of-shirt sponsorship agreement, said to be a record commercial deal for the Royals. The sponsorship also includes the team’s Academy side with a moneyback promise to every Royals fan that leases a car from the company.
Ralph Morton is the leading journalist in the leasing broker sector and editor of Broker News, the website which provides information and news for BVRLA-registered leasing brokers. He also writes extensively on the fleet and leasing market in both the UK and Europe.
