The new logo of Serie A football league is displayed during an event to celebrate a deal between Eni biofuel unit Enilive and Italy's football league to sponsor the country's top championship Serie A in Rome, Italy July 3, 2024. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane
ROME (Reuters) - Italy's top flight soccer league will have a new logo to mark the start of the sponsorship by the biofuel unit of energy group Eni, the chief executive of Enilive and Serie A said late on Wednesday.
Enilive signed a deal in February to become title sponsor of Serie A for three seasons starting from the 2024-25 championship. It is replacing Telecom Italia (TIM), which sponsored the league for more than two decades.
The new logo unveiled during an event late on Wednesday in Rome combines a capital A, representing the soccer league, and a blue dog, which symbolizes Enilive.
Enilive groups together multi-fuel service stations and biorefineries in Italy and abroad. In its 2024-2027 plan Eni forecasts the unit's core earnings rising to 1.2 billion euros ($1.29 billion) in 2025 from 1 billion euros expected this year.
Enilive and renewable and retail unit Plenitude are part of Eni's long term strategy to develop separate entities dubbed "satellites", to attract investors focused on specific products or services.
Reuters reported in January that Serie A was seeking to sign a more lucrative deal at the expiry of the agreement with TIM in June.
TIM paid the league about 20 million euros annually to tie its brand to the championship.
($1 = 0.9270 euros)
(Reporting by Francesca Landini, editing by Alvise Armellini, Peter Rutherford)
