Chevy lands on Manchester United uniforms — just as it pulls out of Europe

Imagine if the Los Angeles Lakers or New York Yankees reserved the front of their uniforms for paid corporate sponsors, and you have an idea of the real estate value offered by European soccer teams. Two years ago, the most popular sports team in the world, England's Manchester United, made a $600 million deal with Chevrolet to put the bow tie on the players followed by more than 650 million fans around the world. Today, Man U revealed the new Chevy look for the first time — just as the Chevy brand prepares to pull out of Europe.

Chevy had several worthy reasons for signing the deal in 2012. Half of Man U's fan base lives in Asia, where most of Chevy's growth lies and where General Motors has made the brand its global stalwart. The price bought seven years' of jerseys from Man U, in a sport that unlike baseball, football or basketball lacks an extensive off-season. And in Europe, the deal was supposed to help grow the Chevy brand as a low-priced alternative to GM's Opel/Vauxhall lines.

All of this arrived in controversy when former GM chief executive Dan Akerson fired GM's chief marketing officer days before the Manchester deal was completed, with reports at the time citing unspecified improprieties around the deal as the reason for the ouster. Akerson signed the agreement anyway and hailed it as helping his strategy of building Chevy as a global brand — right until he reversed course in December 2013 and announced that Chevy would leave Europe by 2016, saying the move would let GM "focus our investments where the opportunity for growth is greatest." (GM will still sell the Corvette and Camaro there, but not any mainstream models.)

So when Wayne Rooney and the Red Devils take the pitch this August, they'll be showcasing a brand that's already told customers it won't be around in a couple of years. Chevy still gets its Asia-Pacific exposure from the deal, and has been dutifully pushing the Man U connection in the run-up to the season. But in Europe, where Chevy has only a small following, the launch will play as if the Dallas Cowboys had traded their stars to hawk Daewoos. This may be one recall GM wishes it could make.