Birkirkara FC will be donning exclusively-made Adidas shirts this season after reaching a technical sponsorship deal with EuroSport for the next three years.
Joe Zammit, the Birkirkara FC president, said all teams representing the valley club, from the U-10s up to the senior team in both men’s and women’s categories, will have the new apparel.
“This is a breakthrough ag-reement for Maltese football,” Zammit told a media conference yesterday.
“Adidas have added the first yellow-red shirt in their collection and it was done exclusively for Birkirkara FC.
“To make our new kits even more unique, Adidas also in-cluded a small Maltese flag at the back of the shirt.
“This is a very prestigious landmark for our club and hope it will be the start of a long colla-boration with EuroSport.”
The first Birkirkara outfit to parade with the new shirts in an official competition will be the women’s team.
Tomorrow, the Maltese champions will make their first appearance in this season women’s UEFA Champions Lea-gue qualifiers in a mini-tourna-ment played at Ta’ Qali with the participation of Northern Ireland’s Glentoran, Dezembro, of Portugal, and Romania’s Olympia Cluj.
For Johann Scicluna’s team this will be their third appearance in the competition and the Birkirkara coach has succeeded in keeping the core of the players that won the championship last season.
Scicluna also bolstered his squad with the acquisition of Malta international defender Kirsty Feasey who joined for their European adventure. Last season she was on the books of English side Reading.
“We are all looking forward to these qualifiers that will be played here for the first time,” Scicluna said.
“Our opponents are of a better pedigree but we prepared well in pre-season. Now, we’re looking to make an improvement from our two previous showings in the Champions League.”
The senior men’s team coach, Paul Zammit, reckons the agreement with EuroSport shows the huge commitment put in by the club this season.
“This is all testament to the input undertaken by the committee to push the club forward,” Zammit said.
“Sponsorship agreements are essential and the association with Adidas and EuroSport will add more prestige to Birkirkara FC.
“We also hope this new shirt will bring us luck as we seek to be among the teams challenging for the main honours this season.”
Cristina Peresso, representing EuroSport, said: “This agreement is the realisation of a dream that we had for many years.
“We always harboured hopes that we would embark on a technical sponsorship agreement with Birkirkara FC.
“For sure, both parties will benefit from this deal as we shall seek to make our partnership last for more years to come.”