Manchester United are confident of securing a lucrative new shirt sponsor deal, though no announcement is imminent.
The club view the acquisition of a new shirt sponsor as integral to their commercial development, as they look to replace Chevrolet as the main sponsors of their jersey.
It will be the sixth different shirt sponsor the club have had, following the car manufacturer plus previous sponsors Sharp, Vodaphone, AIG and Aon. The current deal, believed to be worth £450million, expires at the end of the 2020-21 season.
MEN Sport understands United are in talks with prospective new partners and — as is industry practice these days — have been sending replica shirts to the potential sponsors with different brand names on. MEN Sport reported in October that United were beginning to 'test the water' and that process is now believed to have advanced significantly but is some distance from being complete.
United believe they will be able to clinch another huge deal with a global brand, with United managing director Richard Arnold addressing the issue of a new shirt sponsor in the club's most recent quarter investors' call.
"We've communicated previously that the shirt process is underway and ongoing," said Arnold, speaking alongside Ed Woodward.
"We've communicated previously that only at the point at which a deal is concluded, as you would expect, given its material information, we will announce that in the usual way. That hasn't happened. And concurrently, we've also indicated that we won't be providing running commentary on how that process and the associated negotiations are proceeding.
"So beyond speculation from the press, there is nothing further I can add in respect of that ongoing process."
That stance was echoed by club sources to MEN Sport, though the importance of securing a new shirt sponsor was spelled out as of 'material importance' to the club.
Arnold also answered a specific question from an investor on the conference call on shirt sponsorship and said he believes United are in a unique position in being able to secure a new deal.
"I think that it's actually a very exciting time in sponsorship," he said.
"The combination of the scale of what we offer globally, the ability to be a single solution on both live media across almost every TV set in the world as well as having the most engaged digital footprint in the world, both in Chinese ecosystem as well as Western ecosystems means that we're fairly uniquely positioned.
"All of those things added up are showing that there is a really effective offering from a sponsorship point of view. If you're a major brand, particularly if you are global, particularly if you're trying to achieve ambitious goals where at the point of being unique in the world in terms of what we offer.
"And that's been translating into the ongoing growth you're seeing in these categories.
"It is a competitive market in terms of the number of properties out there, but I don't think it's genuinely competitive in terms of the offering we have relative to others, and we've seen a sort of polarization in terms of the strong getting stronger with regard to that, and that's benefiting us.
"And we're seeing that in the general success rates we're having across our sales process as a whole. So on the whole, we continue to be bullish in respect of the current and future prospects of the sponsorship business."