Leicester City eye transfer market savings after agreeing partnership with FairFX trading firm
Premier League champions Leicester City have capitalised on their success by striking a partnership with a City-based foreign exchange provider that they hope will save them millions of pounds in the transfer market.
Leicester will work with FairFX's international payments service when conducting all overseas transfers after agreeing a two-year deal with the firm.
With more money to spend on players than ever before following their historic title triumph — Leicester have already broken their transfer record twice this summer — the club believe the deal will secure them the best available exchange rates on future signings.
Read more: Leicester set to break transfer record – again – on Nigeria striker
"It's fair to say that when you look at the fees involved now, a saving of only a couple of minor percentage points can actually mean a significant amount of money being saved," Leicester commercial director Ian Flanagan told City PM
"If we’re buying players from overseas territories and doing deals in euros or dollars, which is how a lot of deals get done, having FairFX as our partner will hopefully mean we get the very best possible rates.
"What they have proposed to us is that we will always get the best available rate at any given time for any particular currency we need to complete the transfer."
The partnership, finalised with agency SportQuake, follows a similar agreement between Watford and foreign exchange firm Divisa Capital earlier this year, which was also revealed exclusively by City PM
These types of deals have recently been made possible after the Premier League dropped title sponsor Barclays, freeing up teams to negotiate their own financial services partner.
New broadcast contracts for the 2016-2017 to 2018-2019 cycle, which guarantee Premier League clubs between £100m and £160m a year, have enabled teams to spend more than £500m on players already this summer. The division's outlay is anticipated to top £1bn by the end of the transfer window on 31 August.
"Especially with the new broadcast deal, you don’t necessarily have to be one of the historically big four or six to have the big budgets to be able to buy players abroad," FairFX chief executive Ian Strafford-Taylor told City PM
"When you think of the sums involved, a normal transfer budget for a Premier League club this year is going to be £100m. So if there’s one per cent being charged on the foreign exchange — and it could be that some clubs will get charged more if they’re not careful about it — that’s £1m."
Leicester's ability to raise revenue through commercial partners has soared following their headline-grabbing Premier League victory.
"The things that everyone mentions in association with our season – team spirit, hard work, taking on the big boys and winning – all of those messages are very valuable messages with the business community and strike a chord around the world," Flanagan added.
"The good news for us is that people want to be associated with it."