Europe’s biggest online sex shop Pabo has signed a one-year contract to sponsor Breda football club NAC.

Pabo is also working together with FC Utrecht, Heerenveen, ADO Den Haag, FC Groningen and Excelsior, according to local broadcaster Omroep Brabant. The nature of these deals is not clear.

‘NAC approached us to do something with football,’ Pabo category director Audrey van Ham, told the broadcaster. ‘We are looking for a way to reach a major public. Football is a good opportunity because most men have a super woman at home and they don’t usually go [to the game].’

Surprise

Pabo will be a medium-sized sponsor at NAC and will start by using advertising hoardings based around the slogan ‘surprise your partner’ next to the pitch. The company is setting up a ‘Pabo on tour’ bus and is working on designing lingerie in club colours.

The campaign will not involve prints of sex aids on shirts, Van Ham said. ‘We are focusing on lingerie. We are never vulgar.’

Omoep Brabant says this is not the first time a sex shop has been involved in sponsoring sport.

Brothels

In the 1980s, the Sauda Diana brothel in Zundert sponsored various cycling teams and turned an English double decker bus into a mobile changing room and shower for the cyclists.

The Bar Julia brothel in Nuland has sponsored local amateur football club RKVV Nulandia for years. Utrecht football club RUC signed a sponsorship deal with erotic television channel Meiden van Holland owned by porn star Kim Holland.

Also in Utrecht, student rugby club RUS is sponsored by the Christine le Duc lingerie and sex aid retail chain. Like Pabo, Christine le Duc is owned by German sex imperium Beate Uhse.