Premiership Experience, the Glasgow-based sports tourism company that offers tailored packages for football fans, has signed a “significant seven-figure” deal in Beijing with a leading Chinese conglomerate, during a Scottish Chambers of Commerce’s Trade Mission.
The company, founded by Kieran Coyle in 2010 when he was 18 years old, has been in negotiations with the company for nine months, brokered through the UK office of the Bank of China.
The identity of the counterparty, headquartered in China’s Henan Province, and the exact value of the contract, are not currently being revealed while the Chinese company communicates with its domestic market. However it can be confirmed that the deal, signed last week, will almost double the company’s £1.5 million-plus turnover.
The agreement was reached while Kieran and his operations manager Alistair Coull were participating in the Scottish Chambers of Commerce’s week-long Trade Mission to Beijing and Shandong Province; a visit he said had provided the company with “several more very promising opportunities”.
Premiership Experience, a member of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce since 2016, is one of the UK’s leading sports tour operators delivering top-quality experiences, aiming to provide lifelong memories for young people from all backgrounds and economic circumstances.
From Match Day Experience packages at some of the Premier League’s leading clubs to international tours at the most prestigious European academies, the company has gained a global reputation for exciting, high-quality, affordable products. It works closely with schools, tour groups and families to ensure customer satisfaction and five-star feedback.
The company’s breakthrough in China, where the popularity of English Premier League football is booming, marks a significant new phase of rapid re-investment and further internationalisation for the company. The deal was advised by Glasgow Law Practice, the firm’s solicitors.
Kieran Coyle said: “We already work in seven overseas markets, and since we received this approach from the Chinese side we have been inviting over small groups of Chinese children to test the cultural suitability of the products we offer. The success of those visits, coupled with the infrastructure we have developed over the past eight years, has allowed us to reach this agreement. The terms of the deal mean that we will start on a small scale for the first year and scale up significantly moving forwards.”
“The successful Scottish Chambers Trade Mission has been hugely helpful to our understanding of how Chinese business operates. The tailored access it has provided at a governmental and corporate level has supplied several strong leads for potential follow-up deals in this vast and exciting market.”
Tim Allan, President of the Chamber of Commerce who led the 14-22 April Trade Mission: China said: “This is fantastic news from a superbly entrepreneurial young company. China’s President Xi Jinping has plans to make China a leading football power in the world, and ex-English Premiership players here are some of the highest-paid in the world.
“For Premiership Experience to make its mark in this way in the early stages of the game’s development in China bodes very well for them, and I congratulate Kieran and Alistair for this great achievement.”
For further information on Premiership Experience contact Kieran Coyle or Alistair Coull on 0141 946 1146 or email info@premiershipexperience.co.uk For further information on the SCC Trade Mission to China, contact Colin Donald on 07793 606901, cdonald@scottishchambers.org.uk
Kieran Coyle at the Zhengzhou Exhibition Centre in Henan China
Scottish Chambers of Commerce
The Scottish Chambers of Commerce is at the heart of Scotland’s largest and most influential business to business network.
