AC Milan - DR Congo: inside the sponsorship deal
After more than a year of talks, AC Milan and the DRC have made official a sponsorship agreement worth 14 million euros
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From Montreal to Kinshasa via Italy: the idea behind the partnership with AC Milan has travelled a long way. Shaped by Tourism Minister Didier M’Pambia Musanga, the project was also steered by Yebo RDC, an agency founded by Gaylord Kasayi, a Congolese based in Canada.
Unlike the failed attempts with Atlético Madrid and Olympique Lyonnais, where the people who started the projects were sidelined, the work around the Milan club relied from start to finish on the same people, who prepared a special mock-up as early as April 2024 with a slogan, Experience DRC, printed at the bottom of the back of the rossoneri shirts.
A deal made possible by the Prime Minister's backing
With a memorandum of understanding signed in September, the deal was ultimately delayed amid political uncertainty and interference from the Sports Ministry, which wanted to strike a deal with another club. It was a dissonance that points to a lack of clarity and unity in the DRC's overall sports diplomacy, which was scattering its efforts across different clubs, intermediaries, ministries and slogans.
Read also: AS Monaco - DR Congo: an empty shell of a partnership?
With no leaks to the press, unlike the far too talkative advisers at the Sports Ministry who fed the media and Africa Intelligence with the comings and goings of minister Didier Budimbu, the Tourism Ministry carried out intense behind-the-scenes work and political lobbying.
Backed by Prime Minister Judith Suminwa, the contract was finally initialled nine months after the memorandum of understanding, just days after media leaks about a similar deal with AS Monaco involving the Tourism Ministry.
Even so, the timing of the Milan deal is no coincidence: the Prime Minister was also travelling in Italy to attend the Mattei Plan for Africa & Global Gateway summit, held in Rome on Friday 20 June, where she defended the Lobito corridor project, which could link that Angolan port to mining regions of the DRC and Zambia. "This project should not be seen solely as an opening to the Atlantic through Angola and Zambia", she said, referring to the much-vaunted "win-win" partnership [...] "We have to go further than that by looking at all the structuring projects or programmes that can be created around this corridor and turn it into a development hub."
The Mama Sofia Foundation, in memory of the late Italian ambassador
While these two summits, strongly backed by Italy, were meant to deepen cooperation between Africa and Europe with major fundraising, for the Democratic Republic of Congo they were tied to the announcement of the partnership with AC Milan.
Paying around 14 million euros as a "premium partner", the DRC will have to wait until the 2026/2027 season to appear on the rossoneri shirts. The delay stems from the postponements of the signing, caused by multiple factors (the war in the east of the country, interference and so on). With the space on its shirt already sold, Milan has nevertheless offered compensation for this campaign, along with joint communications and signage at the training ground and at San Siro.
Among the compensation measures, a football academy will be launched and a school will be built in Boma in partnership with the Mama Sofia Foundation. Inspired by the widow of the late Italian ambassador Luc Attanasio, who was shot dead in the east of the DRC during a MONUSCO convoy (United Nations Organisation Stabilization Mission in the DRC), the foundation has already helped build a medical centre in Boma.
Other initiatives are under consideration, while the definitive slogan, Explore the DRC, heart of Africa, will also receive commercial and media promotion from the Milan side.