History

Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (also simply known as United), is a professional football club based in the Old Trafford area of Manchester, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top division in the English football league system. Nicknamed the Red Devils, it was founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, but changed its name to Manchester United in 1902. The club moved from Newton Heath to its current stadium, Old Trafford, in 1910.

Manchester United have won a record 20 League titles, 12 FA Cups, five League Cups, and a record 21 FA Community Shields. They have won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League three times, and the UEFA Europa League, the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, the UEFA Super Cup, the Intercontinental Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup once each. In 1968, they became the first English club to win the European Cup. Alex Ferguson is the club’s longest-serving and most successful manager, winning 38 trophies, including 13 league titles, 5 FA Cups, and 2 UEFA Champions League titles between 1986 and 2013. In the 1998–99 season, under Ferguson, the club became the first in the history of English football to achieve the European treble of the Premier League, FA Cup, and UEFA Champions League. In winning the UEFA Europa League, they became one of five clubs to have won the original three main UEFA club competitions (the Champions League, Europa League and Cup Winners’ Cup).

In an initial five-year deal worth £500,000, Sharp Electronics became the club’s first shirt sponsor at the beginning of the 82–83 season. That lasted until the end of the 99–00 season, when Vodafone agreed on £30 million deal. Vodafone agreed to pay £36 million to extend the deal by four years, but after two seasons triggered a break clause.

To commence at the start of the 06–07 season, AIG agreed a four-year £56.5 million deal which in September 2006 became the most valuable in the world. At the beginning of the 10–11 season,  Aon became the club’s principal sponsor in a four-year deal reputed to be worth  £80 million, making it the most lucrative shirt sponsorship deal in football history. Manchester United announced their first training kit sponsor in  2011, agreeing a four-year deal with DHL reported to be worth £40 million; it is believed to be the first instance of training kit sponsorship in English football.

The DHL contract lasted for over a year before the club bought back the contract in 2012, although they remained the club’s official logistics partner. The contract for the training kit sponsorship was then sold to Aon in April 2013 for a deal worth £180 million over eight years, which also included purchasing the naming rights for the Trafford Training Centre.

The club’s first kit manufacturer was Umbro, until a five-year deal was agreed with Admiral Sportswear in 1975.Adidas received the contract in 1980, before Umbro started a second spell in 1992. Umbro’s sponsorship lasted for ten years, followed by Nike’s record-breaking £302.9 million deal that lasted until 2015; 3.8 million replica shirts were sold in the first 22 months with the company. In addition to Nike and Chevrolet, the club also has several lower-level  sponsors, including Aon and Budweiser.

On 30 July 2012, United signed a seven-year deal with  General Motors, which replaced Aon as the shirt sponsor from the 14–15 season. The new $80m-a-year shirt deal is worth $559m over seven years and features the logo of General Motors brand Chevrolet. Nike announced that they would not renew their kit supply deal with Manchester United after the 14–15 season, citing rising costs. Since the start of the 15–16 season, Adidas has manufactured Manchester United’s kit as part of a world-record 10-year deal worth  of £750 million.  Kohler became the club’s first sleeve sponsor ahead of the 18–19 season. Manchester United and General Motors did not renew their sponsorship deal, and the club signed a five-year, £235m sponsorship deal with TeamViewer of the 21–22.

Honors 

Manchester United is one of the most successful clubs in Europe in terms of trophies won. The club’s first trophy was the Manchester Cup, which they won as Newton Heath LYR in 1886. In 1908, the club won their first league title, and won the FA Cup for the first time the following year. Since then, they have gone on to win a record 20 top-division titles – including a record 13 Premier League titles – and their total of 12 FA Cups is second only to Arsenal (14). Those titles have meant the club has appeared a record 30 times in the FA Community Shield (formerly the FA Charity Shield), which is played at the start of each season between the winners of the league and FA Cup from the previous season; of those 30 appearances, Manchester United have won a record 21, including four times when the match was drawn and the trophy shared by the two clubs.