Nurturing talent on and off the pitch: adesso is the new main sponsor of Borussia Dortmund’s youth department

The parties have also agreed on a comprehensive sponsorship package that provides adesso with visibility on BVB advertising boards in stadiums, in advertisements and at individual photo and video sessions with youth players at the Borussia Dortmund training complex, including a company presentation at selected U17 and U19 championship matches. In addition, adesso will have the opportunity to showcase its company in branded content and BVB TV live streams in connection with the youth squad.

To mark the start of the partnership, Prof. Dr. Volker Gruhn, founder of adesso and Chairperson of the company’s Supervisory Board, symbolically took delivery of the BVB shirt with adesso’s logo on it. During a photocall at the Hohenbuschei training complex, Gruhn posed with players from the U19 team and expressed his pride and joy over the opportunity to build a bridge between two of his passions: “Sponsoring Borussia’s up-and-coming players is a perfect fit for adesso. As a service provider for digitalisation projects, we are active in a field that will play a crucial role in shaping the future – and one where finding and inspiring fresh, prom-ising IT talents is of the essence. We have long been leaving our mark on association football through projects such as She for IT and our partnership with Martina Voss-Tecklenburg, the coach of the German women’s national football team, as well as our investments in AISports-Watch and its streaming service soccerwatch.tv. It is now a great honour for us to have the opportunity to do the same for Borussia’s youth squad.”

The second part of the alliance calls for the partners to support each other in a transfer of knowledge and on management-related topics from their respective areas of expertise. As a result, adesso will become a selected IT partner and service provider of Borussia Dortmund. To this end, the company plans to offer training sessions and workshops on IT-related topics for Borussia Dortmund’s youth players. In return, the club will provide adesso employees with valuable insights into the world of sport management and efforts to develop and nurture young talents in professional association football. The two Dortmund-based partners also plan to of-fer internships and job shadowing opportunities for young players and employees.

“We are very happy about this new partnership,” said Lars Ricken, Borussia Dortmund’s Youth Coordinator. “What makes us so happy is that it involves an innovative, Dortmund-based company supporting young talent and that it goes well beyond an ordinary sponsorship. That is something our youth players will benefit from in workshops and training sessions. As we have seen for ourselves over the past few months of cybertraining and working from home in particular, digitalisation is going to play an important role in all of our futures.”

The sponsoring partnership is a tremendous gain for adesso’s She for IT initiative, which aims to increase the proportion of women in the field of information technology. From the 2021/22 season, adesso will also act as the official shirt sponsor for Borussia Dortmund’s new women’s team. BVB’s female players are set to hit the pitch with the adesso logo and the phrase “She for IT” on their shirts in the hopes of raising the profile of women in STEM professions in business and society at large.