South Wales Echo, 7th December 2010

Cardiff City FC can now confidently concentrate on achieving football success and leave their IT services in the expert hands of Wales’s leading IT specialist Circle IT following the signing of a new contract.

Circle IT has secured a three-year contract and strategic partnership with the championship side, worth over £100,000, to provide ongoing managed services including fully outsourced proactive IT support, endpoint security, offsite disaster recovery and 24/7 system monitoring.

Circle IT will deploy and support systems at Cardiff City’s stadium, as well as providing and managing IT links to the club’s training facilities at the Vale Hotel.

As well as ongoing support and maintenance, Circle IT will manage the entire Cisco infrastructure of which the entire stadium is totally reliant.

This latest contract win sees Circle IT cement its position as a leader in the provision of bespoke specialist IT solutions, capturing a large share of the IT opportunities available within the Welsh sports sector. The company is already a major player in Wales’s sporting arena, having provided IT support and services to the Newport Gwent Dragons for over four years.

Circle IT’s Managing Director, Roger Harry said: "We already work across a variety of industry sectors in the UK providing IT solutions to enable businesses to operate in more effective and efficient ways. This new contract with Cardiff City FC will help us demonstrate to other businesses and organisations that we really do have a package of services that can be individually tailored to suit all sectors."

The strategic partnership will also bring Circle IT benefit from a number of advertising and corporate hospitality opportunities.

Cardiff City FC, Chief Executive, Gethin Jenkins said: "We have a large and complex infrastructure in the stadium as well as at the Vale training ground. Both venues serve the needs of Cardiff City FC users, and the stadium also supports a number of other organisations based there.

"Circle IT has audited the entire infrastructure and has made recommendations which have been adopted. These have resulted in vast improvements for the end users as well as providing reassurance that all of our systems are expertly managed and supported.

"Circle IT has worked flexibly around our fixtures and with the other organisations based at the stadium to implement the necessary changes. It’s been fantastic to have this done without disruption and to schedule."