Arsenal have confirmed that Japanese games giant Sega are to be the new shirt-sponsor as of 1 July, but they have refused to confirm media speculation that the deal is worth as much as 12 million pounds (suggested by Sky Sports). What they do say is that it is a club record amount, and is 'believed' to be the highest in the UK... so we can assume it exceeds the ManU/Sharp deal confirmed at 1.5 million over 3 years.

There is no indication (as yet) of what the shirt will look like, but a joint statement says that 'Dreamcast is an innovative product and its association with Arsenal will ensure it becomes a market leader' so we can assume it is the D-word which will appear on merchandise-aplenty rather than 'Sega'.

(PA/SL suggest that this will tie in nicely with Sega's sponsorship of the Champions League. This is news to us... their deadly rival Sony Playstation is currently a CL sponsor, but we don't remember hearing this.)

Read the statement at AFCi or Sega Europe.

Of course, we did tell you about this months ago...