Robbie Williams has described his deal with Port Vale as a “match made in heaven” after the club announced the pop icon’s RW logo will feature on the front of their shirts for the next two seasons.
Williams, who was born near the home of the fourth-tier side Vale Park in the Staffordshire town of Burslem, will have his initials on the Valiants’ home and away kit and will be an ambassador for the Vale Charity Foundation.
“I started going to the Vale when it was 50p to get in for a junior supporter,” Williams said. “It takes a village to raise a child and the rail yard (stand) at Vail Park raised me.
“I feel pretty incredible to be honest. Robbie Williams on the front of the Port Vale shirt. It’s a match made in heaven for me.”
We are very proud to announce a landmark two-year partnership with a global music icon and lifelong fan, @robbiewilliams.
In addition to sponsoring the front of the jersey, Robbie will be the very first @PVFCFoundation an ambassador#PVFK | #RobbieWilliams pic.twitter.com/343aRLSBBY
— Port Vale Football Club (@OfficialPVFC) June 12, 2026
The 52-year-old credited Vale chairman and co-owner Carol Shanahan and her family, who took over in 2019, for his greater involvement with the club, who will put the home shirt on sale on June 13 at 09:00 BST.
“It was very important for me to be surrounded by the Port Vale family again,” added Williams, who has more than 3.8 million followers on Instagram, which is different from the club’s total of around 54,000. “It feels great.”
Robbie Williams: Why Port Vale is ‘right love’
Born in 1974, Williams believes his first game came in 1982 against nearby rivals Stoke City.
He found the crowd “terrifying” and spent years watching the sport on TV, falling in love with Manchester United but not hoping to visit Old Trafford, remembering that Manchester “might as well have been Mars”.
“By the time I was old enough to leave home, Port Vale was just around the corner,” he said. Cup 90 on football.
“I could collect 50p – I used to get it from my nanny. Then Port Vale became my home and my club, then my first real love.”
Williams cited the home win over Tottenham in the fourth round of the FA Cup in January 1988 as his greatest moment, which gave him a windfall because he had read a textbook on the game at school.
“I was taking bets and everyone was betting against Port Vale but I wasn’t very good at maths so I just put those odds up (and said) ‘you’ve got to come and argue with me’ because I was just giving money away.
“But then there was a big upset in Port Vale and I pocketed four and a half pounds, which might have been £4,000 at the time.”
Robbie Williams Port Vale Investments
Vale previously received £240,000 from Williams when they ran into financial difficulties in 2006, making him their main contributor at the time.
In May 2011, Williams transferred his voting rights by proxy to the Port Vale Supporters’ Club, allowing the fans to take the deciding vote at an extraordinary general meeting.
“It wasn’t an investment,” he said of the money. “I was giving my money away. The investment might suggest that I was getting something back from it, but I gave them money, as I understood at the time, to stop them getting involved in administration.”
Speaking about the new partnership, Vale chief executive Matt Hancock described Williams as a “global superstar” and “a true supporter of the club with a deep personal connection to our city”.
“It’s that authenticity that makes it so powerful,” suggested Hancock. “From the very first conversations it was clear that this was about Robbie’s lifelong love of Port Vale and making a real difference to people’s lives.
“The support and exposure the partnership will bring to the club and foundation will help us reach more people, create more opportunities and continue to use the club as a force for good.
“We are grateful to Robbie and his team and can’t wait to see the partnership come to life, starting with the launch of our new kits for 2026/27.”
Robbie Williams as the President of Port Vale
In February 2024, Williams was appointed Vale president alongside club legend John Rudge, whose achievements included overseeing three promotions between 1985 and 1994.
“There have been a lot of good moments along the way, and one of the really, really good moments was meeting this young man,” co-owner and chairwoman Carol Shanahan said at the time (via Vale website), talking about the relationship between the hierarchy and Williams.
“We are very honored that Robbie has become a Port Vale fan and we wanted to honor that with this role.
“Robbie is always welcome here at Vale Park and we are all very, very grateful that he has agreed to be ‘El Presidente’.
Williams called the move “great.” “It’s been many, many years since I’ve been to Port Vale,” he admitted.
“But Port Vale has always been in my heart and always will be. Your team chooses you. You don’t choose your team.
“I didn’t come for many reasons, but then I went and met Carol and everything changed for me. When I met Carol, the doors to the city opened again for me.
“I really felt like I was back home. It’s an honor to be back here, in a city where we are one of the country’s best and worst kept secrets, who we are as a people and what we stand for, what our hearts stand for.
“We’re the nicest people on the planet and this club comes from a place of kindness. It’s unique to have a place where you feel loved, feel like it’s home and feel like it’s doing something incredibly important in the community and on the pitch.
“We all know how much Burslem needs this club, but we also know how much this club needs Burslem and the people of Burslem and the surrounding areas.”
FIFA World Cup 2026: What role does Robbie Williams’ song play
FIFA made Williams its music ambassador in June 2025 and the creator of their official anthem Desire, which debuted at the Club World Cup that summer.
Together with singer Nicole Scherzinger, Williams performed at the World Cup draw at the Kennedy Center in Washington last December.
Williams performed hits including Let me Entertain You, Feel and Angels ahead of the opening match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup between Russia and Saudi Arabia in Moscow.
“It was never a part of my life,” he said of football. “It’s always been there. It was the only consistent thing, apart from my near and dear ones, that stayed with me as a lifelong passion.
“Things come and go: other sports, computer games, fashion, food. But football is like breathing for me.”
What did Robbie Williams say about Port Vale and Take That?
When Williams and Take That were hitting the charts in the early 1990s, Williams drove film crews around Vale Park.
“I got into music only because I didn’t know enough about football,” he admitted. “The original dream was to become a footballer, but it never happened because I didn’t have the talent.
“I think they said, ‘You’re going to need something to lean on,’ so I got a job in a boy band.”
Williams was a solo artist between 1996 and 2006 before returning to Take That for five years and remains revered by many for his work with the group and under his own management.
When did Robbie Williams tour Port Vale?
The concert at Vale Park was planned for 2020 but was postponed until 2022 due to the Covid pandemic.
The show sold out to 20,000 and opened with 1997’s Let me Entertain You, which reached number three in the UK.
Still an avid gamer, Williams says he appears in reviews on Vale Pak brought “varying degrees of success and varying degrees of how seriously the opposition took it.”
“I played against Aston Villa a team that was still playing in the season and people were playing for spots,” he recalled.
“It wasn’t fun. But then (I played) against Leicester and it was like a postseason f***-up. It was a lot of fun – and I scored too.”
Images: PVFC
