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    Communist era shirt sponsorship

    After having a look at the 1986 Steaua-Barcelona shootout, prompted by the shootouts thread, I started having a look through old footage of Hagi and of Romanian football in general.

    A few gems are there to be found on youtube. There's too much by Hagi for it to be worth linking to any individual clips, but there is weird stuff like this wacky goal by Lacatus for Steaua against (a very very dirty) Gothenburg in the '89 European Cup (you have to wait for the second replay to clearly see just how wacky). Or there's this little beauty, what appears to be an off-screen filming of a video of the infamous disallowed Steaua goal from the '88 Romanian Cup Final (I wrote an article about that one for WSC many years ago), an incident reputedly wiped from the official TVR tapes of the game, presumably on teh order of some Securitate big cheese who didn't want it to ever be revealed that there was nothing wrong with Balint's goal.

    Anyway. That's just a lengthy digression. What really surprised me was to see footage from 1988 that showed Steaua had their shirts sponsored by Ford.

    Was there a lot of that sort of thing back before the wall came down?

    #2
    Communist era shirt sponsorship

    No.

    I remember being very surprised by it at the time (though not as surprised as I was at Barca losing), but it was a sign of how Ceaucescu was seen by the "West" (and especially by the US) as a "good Communist". I don't know if you ever got to see the museum the regime kept in Bucharest of "gifts" given to the Ceaucescus by "grateful citizens" and "honoured foreign guests", but there were a surprising number of "donations" from major US corporations and a number of personal gifts from the likes of Nixon.

    Also remember that it wasn't that long before that time that no club was allowed to wear shirt sponsorship in European matches.

    Arguably contrary examples (outside of Yugoslavia) that I can think of off the top of my head were Dukla (which more a very large badge than an ad) and some of the Soviet teams that were named after industrial companies (like Lada Togliati). Videoton of Hungary might have been another.

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      #3
      Communist era shirt sponsorship

      Funnily enough, I am currently watching the second leg of the 1984 UEFA Cup Final between Spurs and Anderlecht, and both clubs are wearing sponsored shirts.

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        #4
        Communist era shirt sponsorship

        In 1987, Dynamo Kiev were sponsored by Commodore computers, whose logo appeared on their shirts when they played Porto in the European Cup semi-final that season.

        When Spartak Moscow battered Liverpool in 1992, a year after the USSR had ceased to exist, there were a total of two advertising hoardings in the Lenin Stadion for the home leg, spaced miles apart, one in each half of the pitch. One said "LADA", the other "SMIRNOFF".

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          #5
          Communist era shirt sponsorship

          shouldn't you be "Hieronymus Carew"?

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            #6
            Communist era shirt sponsorship

            Videoton were a team named after a company, as ursus suggests. As were Carl Zeiss Jena, no?

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              #7
              Communist era shirt sponsorship

              Yes.

              200, the ban on sponsored shirts in the European Cup lasted longer than that in the UEFA Cup.

              Hieronymus, I think that the Commodore sponsorship of Dynamo Kiev was only for Europe (as was that of Steaua by Ford). Such arrangements were not unheard of for clubs from "smaller" leagues.

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                #8
                Communist era shirt sponsorship

                Ah, yes, but, that footage of Steaua in Ford-sponsored shirts was from a domestic match....

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                  #9
                  Communist era shirt sponsorship

                  Very interesting.

                  I don't recall Ford selling cars in Ceaucescu's Romania, but they must have thought they were getting something out of it (or else the team just liked the shirts); Dacia's traditional partner was Renault.

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                    #10
                    Communist era shirt sponsorship

                    I'm sure they didn't sell in Ceausescu's Romania, as the GLW's dad had one of only half a dozen or so Fords in the entire country.

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                      #11
                      Communist era shirt sponsorship

                      They've just taken over the car factory in Craiova (previously occupied by Daewoo).

                      Not that this is remotely relevant to 1988, obviously

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