After a season without a league sponsor, top-flight clubs have saluted the new sponsorship deal signed between the National football federation (Ferwafa) and brewing company Bralirwa that will see the brewer effectively become the official sponsor of Rwanda Premier League for the next four years.

The deal means that the top-flight league will rebrand to ‘Primus National League starting with the 2020/21 season which is set to resume soon according to sources.

Bralirwa’s sponsorship deal is one of the resolutions approved by top-flight clubs during FERWAFA’s general assembly which was held in January.

Majority of the top-flight clubs are struggling for financial resources and have either deducted or suspended the wages of all their employees after the Ministry of Sports suspended the premier league in December last year to contain the spread of Covid-19 among players and staff in their respective camps.

Cash-strapped Etincelles has, for instance, suspended wages for players and other staff since January but club president Dirigeant Hitayezu believes the sponsorship will help the club mitigate the financial burden they are experiencing.

"It is good news to have a league sponsor because it will hopefully benefit our clubs, especially financially. We couldn’t get resources as expected because our sources of income have been affected by the pandemic. Hopefully, the sponsorship will partly play a role in overcoming our financial constraints,” Hitayezu told Times Sport on Sunday.

It is reported that the sponsorship package is in the region of Rwf640 million, a far less sum compared to what Azam injected in when the Tanzanian pay television company offered $2.35m (about Rwf2.3 billion) in 2015 to sponsor the league for five years.

The broadcasters, however, terminated the deal three years later, accusing Ferwafa of breaching the contract terms and lacking accountability.

After the termination, the football governing body failed to attract any potential partners to sponsor the league and the 2019/20 league season was played without a sponsor, something Kiyovu SC president Juvenal Mvukiyehe labelled as a ‘shame’ for Rwandan football.

"To me, it was a shame having a league without a sponsor but we are happy to have our league named after a sponsor. I believe this can help our league improve as well as bring inspire competition from other sponsors to knock on our doors proposing an improved deal,” Mvukiyehe said.

A fair deal?

Although clubs are struggling with resources due to the pandemic, Hitayezu is convinced the Bralirwa didn’t take advantage of clubs’ financial crisis to decide how much it injected into the league because the brewer is not making profits as expected due to the pandemic’s financial impact.

"The distribution has dropped and we think it’s a fair deal regardless of the previous league sponsorship deals. We contributed to the signing of the deal during the last general assembly,” he said.

"But in case another sponsor brings a deal which is way bigger than Bralirwa’s, we requested that a clause be inserted in the agreement contract so we find a room to revise the contract in favor of getting an improved deal. All those elements were taken care of before the deal was approved,” he added.