SPONSORLESS BAYER

Bayer Leverkusen have had difficulty finding a suitable sponsor recentlyBayer Leverkusen have so far been unsuccessful in finding a partner they are happy with and will consider taking to the field in plain shirts, just like in the old days. CEO Wolfgang Holzhauser says: "If the price isn't right, we'll play without sponsored shirts. We can afford to."It's not without irony that one of only two teams in all of Germany that is owned by a company is considering snubbing this particular form of commercialism. Of course, Bayer haven't suddenly rediscovered their purist ideals, it's rather a case of once bitten, twice shy.In August 2007, just two days before their first league game of the new season, Bayer signed a contract with TelDaFax, a multi-industry company best known for its telecommunications branch, that earned the club about €6 million per year. Four years later, TelDaFax went bankrupt, owing no less than 750,000 customers and business partners money or services.Bayer were smart enough to cancel their contract with TelDaFax before the company went belly-up, but the bankruptcy still causes them headaches. The company's insolvency administrator has sued Bayer for €16 million, claiming that the club kept receiving money from TelDaFax even though it was aware of the company's severe financial problems. (Which, as strange as it may sound, is indeed unlawful.)In August 2011, again only two days before their first Bundesliga game, Bayer found a new shirt sponsor to replace TelDaFax, the Californian solar energy corporation SunPower. The parties signed a contract for three years that reportedly earned Bayer €6.5 million per year. However, last October SunPower suddenly decided to cut back on their involvement in Europe and cancelled the sponsorship deal a year before it was about to expire.Hence Bayer's intention to find a solid, stable partner and their announcement to consider not having a sponsor at all. It remains to be seen how serious they are about this. Back in 2011, Holzhauser had already gotten permission from the league to wear shirts that said "Werkself" (company XI – Leverkusen's nickname) before unveiling SunPower at the last moment, so he knows how to bluff at the bargaining table to get the best deal.