Aeroflot 'should invest in Russia rather than Manchester United'

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Aeroflot 'should invest in Russia rather than Manchester United'

Aeroflot, Russia's national airline, should invest in the country rather than Manchester United, according to the deputy prime minister.

The airline signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Manchester United in July Photo: Getty Images

By Harriet Alexander
3:04PM BST 30 Jul 2013

It is as emphatically Russian as vodka, bears and permafrost.

Yet the national airline Aeroflot has been criticised by the deputy prime minister for not being patriotic enough.

Dmitry Rogozin has said that the airline’s sponsorship of Manchester United is wrong – and that the company should instead invest its money in buying Russian planes.

“Aeroflot prefers Anglo-Saxon football and basketball clubs to our planes?” he wrote on Twitter. “I might invite them for an intimate talk.”

The airline, one of the oldest in the world, signed a five-year sponsorship deal with Manchester United in July.

“State-owned companies should buy our (Russian) aircraft. I will hold a meeting of producers and buyers on Aug 14,” he said in a subsequent post.

The airline is already a sponsor of CSKA Moscow football club, in addition to backing next year’s Winter Olympics, to be held in the Russian city of Sochi.

Aeroflot also sponsors a basketball club – the Brooklyn Nets – which is owned by Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov, a political challenger to President Vladimir Putin.

At the time that the deal was signed, Richard Arnold, United's managing director said: "We have 18 million fans in Russia, but we have never had a partner there."

In 2011, Manchester United signed a deal with logistics company DHL to be the sponsor of their training kit.