Deportivo Municipal took the most visible property on its uniform and divided it into 1,000 purchasable pieces. While football shirts have become cultural objects, the historic Lima club used its white jersey and red sash as a funding platform for small businesses and individual supporters.
“Los Mil Sponsors del Muni” launched in January 2026 through a partnership between Municipal and advertising agency McCann Lima. Instead of charging every participant approximately $60, the club offered six configurations ranging from about $30 to $177 (S/100 to S/600). The widely repeated $60 figure applied only to the S/200 package.
The space purchased determined the size and shape of the sponsor’s placement. Participants also received club recognition, discounted tickets and merchandise, social-media visibility and opportunities for their businesses to be promoted through Municipal’s players.
Municipal said in early April that close to 60 percent of the grid had been filled. The campaign’s subsequent awards case reported that it secured 1,000 sponsors within three months and raised approximately $75,000 (S/254,000). That total is far below the unsupported £220,000 figure attached to some international versions of the story.
The money originally had a defined distribution. In April, Municipal said 70 percent would support its first team, including the costs of competing in Liga 3. Women’s football, youth development and campaign marketing were each allocated 10 percent. The club’s official campaign terms also identified its women’s program and male and female youth divisions as beneficiaries.
A shirt built as a funding platform
Municipal launched the campaign while preparing for the 2026 Liga 3 season, before its final exclusion from the competition. The club had been relegated from Peru’s top division in 2023, lost its Liga 2 license after the 2024 season and competed in Liga 3 during 2025. Its latest sanction arose while the sponsorship campaign was already underway. An appeal failed in May, sending Municipal into the 2026 Copa Perú, where Sport Humaya eliminated it on penalties in July.
The model reversed the usual hierarchy of shirt sponsorship. Much of the commercial inventory around football is packaged for companies capable of purchasing large, prominent assets. Municipal reduced the cost of entry and distributed the available space among hundreds of smaller buyers.
That structure earned “The Thousand Sponsors of Muni” the 2026 Cannes Lions Grand Prix in Entertainment Lions for Sport. The award recognized Club Deportivo Municipal and McCann Lima for converting supporters into formal sponsors through a platform built around the shirt.
The Front Office Sports post captures the finished design, but its caption compresses the tiered prices into a single $60 figure and suggests the campaign began after relegation. The packages varied substantially, and Municipal’s final 2026 exclusion from Liga 3 came after the campaign had launched.
The project didn’t restore Municipal’s professional status or end its financial crisis. The club was already out of the Copa Perú when the completed shirt gained wider international exposure. Its achievement is narrower but documented: Municipal broke a commercial asset into 1,000 smaller transactions, filled the grid and gave local backers a visible place inside the club.
