The Coca-Cola Kid: How one Brighton fan helped his side ‘win a player’ in bizarre deal
On this day, Brighton announced the signing of the 'Coca-Cola Kid' from Bury in an unusual deal.
30.06.25, 07:30 Updated 22.05.26, 14:48 3 Minute Read
Charlie Parker-Turner
As football has progressed into the modern era and become more popular, more and more money has been pumped into the game, with clubs happily spending tens or even hundreds of millions on one player. Most of the biggest teams already have money to spend, but clubs like Brighton rely on big-money sales to bring in new faces.
The likes of Ben White, Moises Caicedo and Marc Cucurella spring to mind. However, in 2005, twenty years ago to the day, this was not the case when the Seagulls were granted the funds to sign an 18-year-old wonderkid, who was widely dubbed as the ‘Coca-Cola Kid’.
Let’s set the scene. In the summer of 2004, Coca Cola took sponsorship of the Football League and immediately started to think of ways to use the leagues to promote their brand. Initially, they decided to change the colour of their logo to represent the colours of all the 72 Football League teams and place them on prominent advertising boards up and down the country.
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Charlie Parker-Turner Editor