KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 — Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar sponsored up to £3 million (approximately RM5,339,915) in the last three years since 2015 to maintain the ‘Visit Malaysia’ logo on the Cardiff City Football team’s jersey.

The football club’s owner Tan Sri Vincent Tan at a press conference today, revealed that the Sultan of Johor was among the sponsors for the logo, saying, "His Majesty is not helping Cardiff City FC but more to promote the country”.

Cardiff City FC under its manager Neil Warnock is set to compete in the 2018/19 English Premier League alongside Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool following its promotion from Championship League.

Tan also expressed hope that the new Tourism Minister would consider "working together” with his club to further promote Malaysia's tourism industry.

"Barcelona star, Luis Suarez currently is the ambassador for Tourism Malaysia. When he is playing football, it doesn't tell people he is the Tourism Malaysia ambassador but I think you can’t beat the ‘Visit Malaysia’ ambassador in the English Premier League.

"When Cardiff City plays in the English Premier League wearing jerseys with ‘Visit Malaysia’ as main sponsor, 4.8 billion people around the world will see it,” he said.

Tan said many people presumed the Tourism Ministry as being the sponsor for the ‘Visit Malaysia’ logo when actually it did so for only one season (2013-2014).

"They paid for just one year. That was when we were in the English Premier League. So now, we are back in the league again and we hope the new minister will take it into consideration, and they should contribute because in the English Premier League we have to spend a lot of money,” he said.

Known as the Bluebirds and representing the capital city of Wales, Cardiff City FC is the only non-English club to have won the FA Cup, lifting the world-famous trophy in 1927.

They have an impressive recent history in cup competitions, reaching the 2008 FA Cup Final and 2012 League Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. — Bernama