As Vodafone announced last week that it is ending its four-year deal with the once world richest football club’s, two years early, Manchester United is in talks with a number of global brands giants about replacing Vodafone as its shirt sponsor, according to reports.

Vodafone’s deal is set at 9 million pounds, or about $15.5 million. Some of the names reportedly thought to be willing to top that include Google, IBM and Yahoo but Coca Cola and Levi’s as well.

While for Yahoo this would not be a first, as  Yahoo has been quite successful in sports marketing with a 2001 global sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup and the Yahoo Dome, home to Japan’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, it would definetly be a first for Google. Even if they recently opened their Manchester regional offices, as well as a London GooglePlex, I still can’t really see Google on football t-shirts, but who knows.

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