Arsenal FC and Cadbury’s relationship grows sweeter

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Arsenal & Cadbury partnership
Image credit: Arsenal FC

Cadbury has continued their partnership with London juggernauts Arsenal FC, as the official snack partner for the club.

The partnership, now entering its fourth season running, initially began in August 2020 and aims to target a local British audience, with a focus on community.

A partnership between Arsenal and British Sign Language (BSL), has also been integrated into this deal, with BSL aiding and promoting deaf awareness at Arsenal home matches, as well as Cadbury’s ‘Fingers’ snack being tied into BSL initiatives to promote education and inclusion through sign language, with the slogan ‘sign with fingers, big and small’.

Cadbury have also had history with National Deaf Children’s Society, in which a greater understanding of deaf people’s social interaction and football matchday experience was understood. Arsenal & Cadbury are committed to make a change, with matchday programmes at Emirates Stadium to include BSL education, and overall deaf awareness, to ensure greater inclusion for the deaf football community.

Cadbury are also branching into the promotion of women’s football, on the back of the Arsenal women’s successful runs in the Women’s Super League, and the UEFA Champions League. Cadbury and Arsenal plan to enter local communities, to help grow the women’s game at a grassroots level, and give female coaches the opportunity to develop their skills to continue to grow the women’s game in England.

In a video posted to Arsenal’s YouTube channel signifying the extension of this partnership, Arsenal legend Ian Wright shed light on the difficulties and exclusion that deaf fans experience on a matchday, in what Wright describes ‘things we take for granted’. The simple things, such like as conferences, player interviews.

Arsenal have teamed up with lifelong fans, Christopher, and Max, to ensure that the club are doing all that they can to provide a welcoming and inclusive matchday experience for deaf fans, this includes having interpreters on camera when interviews are being done, ensuring that deaf fans can hear from their favourite players in live time.

Arsenal have been at the forefront of inclusion on all fronts and are the first Premier League team to have pitch side interpreters for their deaf audience members, in what Christopher and Max hope, sets a precedent for the rest of the Premier League. In 2018, Arsene Wenger left the club after 22 years of service, but with no interpreters, Arsenal’s deaf audience felt left out of the conversation.

Arsenal and their players look to provide more deaf-inclusive facilities within the Emirates Stadium, with sign language interpreters, and graphics on screens for both dead and non-deaf individuals. Nick Rogers from Mondelez International said via Arsenal’s media release; “Cadbury are dedicated to fostering inclusivity in the game, and we are proud to have incorporated British Sign Language… emphasising the importance of including everyone in the conversation.”

Both Cadbury and Arsenal are giant British brands with a weighted history of inclusion and diversity, with people from differ racial, gender, and disability groups all welcome at the Emirates. This partnership looks to continue to build upon the ongoing community projects that Arsenal & Cadbury share, and now with BSL, to ensure that no one is left out of the conversation.

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France’s LFP eye return of Ligue 1 to traditional broadcast platforms

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Image Credit: ESPN

The French Professional Football League (LFP) are hoping to again attract a traditional broadcast partner for the 2027/28 campaign, believing there is renewed interest in their domestic football media rights.

Ligue 1 – the top division of professional football in France and home to PSG, Marseille et al. – has been without a traditional broadcast partner since 2025 following a series of failed deals and the exhaustion of their potential partner market.

In place of a traditional broadcast deal the LFP launched its own direct-to-consumer platform, which presently carries all ten Ligue 1 matches each week. The platform has attracted around one million subscribers.

The LFP had hoped a return to a traditional broadcast partner could be on the cards from the 2029/30 season, however given their assessment that market interest has returned, they are expected to bring that tender process forward by two years. 

LFP Media chief executive Oliver Bramly believes the time is right to amend a situation that proved deeply unbecoming for a league as esteemed as Ligue 1 – considered, until recently, an indisputable member of Europe’s ‘Top Five’ leagues. 

‘Before I joined, the idea was to issue a tender for the period covering 2029 -2034,’ Bramly told SportsPro. 

‘But the reaction was that this was too far away. Streamers … [and] all the pay-TV platforms expressed a clear interest in a bid for the period between 2027 and 2032.’

‘It’s a once-in-a-lifetime occasion to get a domestic league in a big market like France at an affordable price.’

In March, the LFP presented research that indicated 59% of 9.9million football fans in France watched Ligue 1 via illegal pirate platforms.

Article first appeared in SportsPro. 

Ernie Merrick: ‘There are many clubs that would be fantastic additions to the A-League’

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Ernie Merrick will be forever recognised as a key figure through the A-League’s golden early years. Appointed Melbourne Victory’s foundation manager in 2004 he led the club to not just silverware, but legitimacy and respect in a serious sport city.

A Scottish migrant and PE teacher by trade, Merrick was the youngest of the NSL’s managerial crop when he started with Preston in 1987 in the era of Thomson, Arok & Matic; when he finished with Newcastle in 2020 he was the elder statesman in the A-League age of Postecoglou, Popovic and Arnold.

For the places the game took him and all he achieved – including time as national team manager of Hong Kong – Victory supporters can comfort themselves in the fact that for whatever they feel towards Merrick and his iconic group of players, that feeling is mutual.

‘Yes, definitely,’ Merrick told Soccerscene Unfiltered when asked if managing Victory was the highlight of his career.

‘I think success is [fans] having identification with players, especially. We had Victorian boys playing for Victory.

‘That second year I was determined to have a complete pre-season. Archie Thompson bought me a birthday cake with 200 candles and said “Ernie, we’ve had 200 training sessions. We should celebrate this” – so he was looking forward to a big year, and we won the Grand Final 6-0.’

Nearing 20 years on, Victory and the A-League in general haven’t managed to drive forward as would have been hoped. Unsurprisingly that comes as painful to Merrick, as does the change in landscape regarding his other great passion and contribution in player development. 

‘I’m disappointed, as would most people be, that it’s struggled so badly. To me, there’s something missing,’ said Merrick of the current state of the A-League.

‘Those players we produced at the AIS and VIS went on to be the golden generation. Unless the league is fixed, there’s going to be ongoing problems with the financial status of things.

‘You just cannot earn enough money from selling a youngster, who you might get a million for, who then becomes worth several million in a few years if he does well. Maybe there’s a bit too much of selling players early.’

As someone who gave enduring service across Australia’s two domestic leagues, his voice holds weight in the consideration as to whether it’s time to now blend the, in today’s hyper-corporate landscape.

‘South Melbourne and Preston are two clubs that are perfect for the A-League, I think, down the track. They’ve set up, they’ve endured, they’ve been resilient, they’re playing good football and they’ve got a home base with a home crowd, which is far better than starting a club up from scratch.

‘All those players coming through those squads and the number of supporters they’ve got would be a huge addition. In Sydney too, there’s Marconi – there are so many good clubs around that I think would make a great addition to the A-League.’ 

Merrick also spent thirteen years as head coach at the Victorian Institute of Sport. He feels modern player development is an equation we still haven’t got right, post the closure of the AIS’ football program in 2017.

While many argue the move to club-based academy structures has seen Australia fall more in line with global practice while still producing players of quality, Merrick still feels there is merit in a national high performance program, in addition to club academies.

He was in the process of setting up state academies through the Member Federations during his time as Football Australia’s chief football officer from 2022-25. While the Victoria project was short-lived, academies in Tasmania, Western Australia and South Australia continue to run, but it appears the broader expansion of the concept has been abandoned.

‘I think both systems should work [together] equally well. When I started with the FA program clubs thought they would lose players to us, but I didn’t take any of their players. We offered the opportunity of a high-performance program to other youngsters.

‘We could develop players completely; we weren’t restricted to playing 4-3-3 to combine with the way the first team were playing. We provided more of a rounded education, and good players can play in any system.

‘We managed to affect the coaches involved so they were up to date with the latest information on methods of coaching, etc.’

Catch the full chat with Ernie Merrick on Soccerscene Unfiltered: from being two-footed by a 15-year old Kevin Muscat to his enthusiasm for the future of the Socceroos, his memories of Wellington and Newcastle, and plenty more…

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