West Brom announce new record shirt deal

West Brom have announced Chinese online betting company UK-K8.com as their new shirt sponsor for the next two seasons.

The shirt itself will be revealed either later this week or early next week and the Express & Star understands that the record deal for the club is worth in excess of £5million over the next two years.

It continues Albion's concerted strategy in recent years to expand the Baggies brand in the Asian market.

This season's shirt sponsor worth £2million was another Asian betting company, TLCBET, and the club are currently in the process of sending coaches out to India to teach children in Delhi how to play football.

Adrian Wright, the club's sales and marketing director, said: "Once again we have selected to work alongside a challenger brand that will align with the club's on-going aspirations for global brand recognition.

"It was clear from our talks that the joint promotional approach in Asia will add immense amount of value to the club and will enable us to continue to grow our supporter bases in emerging parts of the world."

UK-K8.com are an online casino operator planning to launch a new website in the United Kingdom in the coming months.

The new sponsors have promised to work with the club to produce videos for Albion's supporters, and they are also interested in replicating the club's Indian coaching initiative.

Vincent Huang, chief operating officer of K8 Group, said: "In keeping with various government strategies in the Asian region, we will also be working with the club on coaching exchanges and other football related initiatives, hopefully replicating some elements of the highly successful Pass It Forward project in India."