Charlton Athletic Online

The all:sports debacle is over, and Charlton will be sporting new sponsors on their chests in future games. The new name we will wear on our replica shirts with pride will be Llanera, a Spanish building company.

The Charlton programme warned yesterday that an announcement was imminent, and that all all:sports stock had been withdrawn from sale at the club shop. This is probably so that any Christmas presents bought are not immediately redundant, creating more work for the staff in handing over discounts, as fans would surely demand, and as the club has previously done when changing designs in the past.

Charlton will receive a minimum of £6.6m for the 4.5 year deal, and this puts them well above par in the Premiership table of who gets what from shirt sponsors. It may not be in the same league as Manchester United, who currently get £15m a year from Vodafone, or Arsenal, who get over £6m a year from O2, but it is more than Fulham, Everton, and others currently receive.

Now we just have to see how long it takes Joma to produce enough shirts for the team, and then the fans...and we won't see them on sale at JD Sports I guess!

Additional: A later "Open letter to Charlton supporters" brought back memories of September 1985, but not such controversial news, and announced that no replica shirts would be on sale this season. With anything bearing the all:sports logo having been withdrawn from sale at the club shop, any Llanera logo shirts will have to wait until next season, when new home and away kits will be produced. This will save Charlton from criticism over kit sales, and is a good move to placate supporters at a difficult time for the club.