The 2024-25 season saw 11 new partners join the City men’s portfolio and a record-breaking number of deals focussed on the Women’s team.
Technology-driven partnerships paved the way, as Publicis Sapient, Veritran, VTEX and Stairmedia joined the club to help enhance operations and fan experience, alongside further growth in Asia as Yili, WakeUp 247 and BigCola become Official Regional Partners of the club.
In July, City’s Chief Executive Officer, Ferran Soriano and Super Group’s Chief Executive, Neal Menashe celebrated the launch of Betway’s partnership with the Men’s and Women’s teams by ringing the iconic opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange and C.P. Company became the Official Fashionwear Partner of Manchester City.
City announced a renewal of its partnership with iconic brand, EA Sports – marking its 14th year working with the club. Five other major partners renewed their commitment to the Club via multi-year agreements.
Activation highlights included the Etihad ‘Beyond Borders’ campaign, which used City players to showcase Etihad’s growing global network. It delivered 23.8 million impressions and reached more than 10 million people.
Sleeve Partner OKX created the campaign ‘A New Alternative’, a powerful film that highlighted the passion and global reach of the Club, with a narrative centred on shared ethos of resilience, perservance and progress. Whilst training kit partner Asahi shot ‘The Z to A of Tokyo’ content with players from City’s Men’s and Women’s team, placing the training kit at the heart of the city’s cultural hotspots to take fans on a journey through Tokyo.
e& celebrated their ‘Go For More’ brand positioning through a Computer Generated Image (CGI) challenge which saw City players tackle a series of obstacles as part of their CGI Go For More Campaign. It delivered strong digital engagement, generating 34 million impressions and 21 million in reach via CGI-led content.
Midea, meanwhile, used Erling Haaland in ‘A Helping Haaland’ campaign which included advertisements featuring the Norwegian striker as a mini household butler. The campaign delivered 35 million video views and 474,000 total engagements on Manchester City channels alone. Kellogg’s used ‘undercover’ players İlkay Gündoğan, Erling Haaland and Joško Gvardiol to surprise and delight young fans and promote the launch of their Summer Football Camps.
Xylem continued their campaign to educate football fans globally, with more than 4,000 fans utilising Xylem’s water calculator to help them reduce their water consumption. City also completed the installation of more than 2,800 solar panels across the City Football Academy (CFA), in conjunction with JinkoSolar as the first phase of Club’s solar panel project.
A series of firsts were announced throughout the season.
In January, Manchester City Women announced an Official Partnership with fintech company Revolut – the first time the brand had partnered with a British football club. The agreement saw the Revolut logo added to the team’s training kit sleeve, as well as matchday takeovers and season-long activations that successfully drove brand awareness.
snuggs were also announced as the Official Period Underwear Partner – a global first in women’s football. Alex Greenwood fronted the campaign, which also included co-branded products and aimed to get women and girls in sport talking more about periods.
A new partnership was signed with sports tech company Hytro – through the partnership the Club will collaborate on research into female athlete muscle rehab and recovery.
The Women’s team also benefited from its first-ever full squad Abu Dhabi Training camp, with support from the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi.
The 2024-25 PUMA kits proved to be fan favourites. The iconic Away kit that celebrated 25 years since City beat Gillingham at Wembley, to secure promotion back to the First Division, broke Away kit launch day records. Shortly after, the ‘Definitely City’ kit, was launched. It was designed in collaboration with Oasis’s Noel Gallagher to celebrate 30 years of their Definitely Maybe album, it also broke Club sales records on launch.
The Club unveiled the season’s Third kit whilst on the Men’s team’s pre-season tour. A Block Party was hosted outside the PUMA Flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The event, which was a football and basketball crossover, saw players and manager Pep Guardiola try their hand at basketball, whilst also speaking to fans and media.
The Men’s pre-season tour also enabled a unique community activation with fellow PUMA club AC Milan. The ‘City and Milan for change’ fixture saw the teams run joint community coaching clinics in New Jersey, before engaging in a world first as they changed their kits at half-time, with City unveiling their new Third kit in the second half. The two clubs donated the shirts worn during the game to fund local community projects run by their respective charities.
In December 2024, City and PUMA collaborated to launch an innovative AI kit design platform – PUMA AI Creator – giving City fans the unique opportunity to design and vote for the club’s official Third kit for the 2026-27 season, with 180,000 kits designed.
PUMA AI Creator was first used by City players Ederson, Stefan Ortega and Rico Lewis who together designed a bespoke goalkeeper kit. Creatively inspired by the net of a football goal, it was the first-ever AI manufactured football kit to be worn on-pitch in the Men’s fixture vs Chelsea in January 2025.
There was also an expansion of City physical retail spaces. A new CityStore in Dubai Mall opened in May 2025, whilst pop-up stores launched in New York, Seoul and Shenzhen.
May also saw PUMA and Manchester City launch the 2025-26 Home kit. For the first time it featured a sash, only previously featured on iconic away kits. The launch was celebrated with a unique film directed by Glenn Kitson, and an event at the home of Clayton Official Supporters Club, where the film was shot.
City continued to grow their partner schools’ network and held an inaugural partner schools’ tournament, with over 300 children from six schools competing to take home the first trophy.
New year-round programmes in Perth (Australia) and Shenzhen (China), as well as the provision of summer camps in seven cities in the USA grew Manchester City youth programmes to over 6,500 players taking part in 16,000 coaching sessions.
The City Football Leadership Institute became Manchester City Business School. Its flagship Next Gen programme evolved into three focused modules—Athlete Management and Development, Marketing and Business, and Media and Content Creation—to offer more tailored learning experiences. Additionally, the newly launched Collegiate programme, a four-week immersive summer course that saw university students based in the US travel to Manchester, sold out its inaugural edition.
CITYPLAY, the smart wearable performance tracker, had record sales and achieved above industry average renewal rates. In a pioneering partnership with the UK’s largest youth league, the Junior Premier League, CITYPLAY facilitated data-driven talent identification, culminating in the selection of top-performing players to participate in friendly matches against Manchester City academy teams. The technology was also used by Manchester City Women’s team during the inaugural World Sevens Football tournament.
