In England Lotto returns with AFC Wimbledon

Among the many clubs sponsored by Lotto throughout its history, English football clubs represent only a small percentage. There are just a few, including the iconic QPR, led by the talent of Adel Taarabt, one of the most fascinating and controversial players in European football during the mid-2000s. Alongside that memorable QPR side - and the sponsorship period covering the 2011/12, 2012/13, and 2013/14 seasons - there was also a brief partnership with AFC Wimbledon during the 1999/00 season. It is indeed Wimbledon, currently fifth in League Two (the bottom tier of the professional football pyramid), that has chosen to bring the historic brand from Treviso back into English football. Lotto’s journey can be compared to that of Umbro. In their respective countries of origin - Italy for the former and England for the latter - these are two companies that built their reputations by becoming increasingly recognizable in their home nations and top leagues: Serie A and the Premier League (before it was even called that).

Lotto’s impact on the sports univeerse

If Umbro was the iconic sportswear brand of English football between the 1980s and 1990s—sponsoring as many as 11 out of 22 clubs in the top tier during the 1992/93 season - something similar can be said for Lotto in Italy. The Treviso-based brand made its mark not only through brief partnerships with Napoli, Fiorentina, Bari, Udinese, Torino, and Atalanta, but above all through collaborations with Italy’s two most prestigious clubs: Juventus and Milan. Yet, just like Umbro - who, despite its domestic dominance, never hesitated to expand beyond English borders - Lotto also grew thanks to clubs across Europe and around the world choosing to wear its logo. A logo born from the vision of the Caberlotto brothers, who initially hadn’t even planned to enter the football market, focusing instead on tennis shoes, but who managed to establish themselves in the sportswear and lifestyle imagination - so much so that Supreme New York created a series of t-shirts inspired by the template used by Lotto in the 2006/07 season, the same season a young Edinson Cavani began to stand out.

Lotto’s journey in football

The first sponsorship deal came all the way back in 1986 with the Cyprus national team, at the same time as the first club to believe in the brand: AZ Alkmaar. From there, a defining trait of the Italian company emerged - a strong presence not only with national teams (including Costa Rica, Malta, Liberia, Croatia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Cameroon, Morocco, Tunisia, Wales, Greece, Lithuania, and many more - with the partnership with Colombia perhaps the most recognizable and long-lasting), but also among numerous Dutch clubs from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Following AZ, deals also came with HFC Haarlem, Mechelen, Utrecht, and Volendam. Of course, the agreement with AFC Wimbledon is exciting not so much for the club's prestige, but because it marks the official return - right in the homeland of football - of a brand that has exported the game around the world.