• Manager ‘will be extending contract in summer’
• Puma deal is biggest in English football history

Arsène Wenger is set to sign a new contract at Arsenal and will be given a huge transfer budget in the summer following the club’s £150m kit deal – the biggest in English football history.

As the club announced a new agreement with Puma, understood to be worth £30m a year until 2019 from the end of this season – the chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, revealed the Frenchman has agreed to stay at the Emirates.

“We are comfortable and relaxed,” he said in relation to a new contract for Wenger. “Arsène will be extending with us and at the right time we’ll announce it.”

The Puma deal ends Arsenal’s 20-year affiliation with Nike, whose recent deal with the north London club totalled £55m over a seven-year period, and eclipses Liverpool’s £25m-a-year deal with Warrior.

Puma have required the rights to produce Arsenal-branded merchandise, as well as the club’s training and first-team kits.

Gazidis said: “The money from this deal will be available to the club from this summer. We are excited to be partnering with Puma, a company whose football heritage and record of innovation have a strong affinity with our own. This represents another important step forward in Arsenal’s progression on and off the pitch.”

• Arsène Wenger
• Arsenal
• Finances
• Business

James Riach

theguardian.com