LANDMINE campaigners have called on Bolton Wanderers to cancel a new sponsorship deal — because the firm it struck the agreement with belongs to a group allegedly responsible for producing lethal antipersonnel mines.

The club announced the year-long deal with green energy company Hanwha Solar One last week, saying it would become one of its major sponsors for the 2011/2012 season.

But the firm has, since last September, been part of the South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group, which campaigners say produces landmines.

Hanwha Group’s core businesses are in manufacturing industrial explosives and munitions, as well as construction, finance, services and leisure.

According to a report by the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor, an organisation linked to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Hanwha produced 10,000 mines in 2007.

Kasia Derlicka, director of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines said: “It’s shocking and awful to hear that such a high-profile football club as Bolton Wanderers would choose to accept sponsorship from a company that has publicly admitted producing landmines — a devastating weapon that most of the world has banned. We hope the club will review this decision.”

Chris Peacock, secretary of Bolton Wanders Football Supporters Association, said: “If this is true, I think the club should certainly think about whether they want BWFC associated with a parent company of a sponsor that makes landmines.”

Hanwha Solar One was a Chinese company named Solarfun Power Holdings until it was bought by the South Korean-based Hanwha Group in September, 2010.

A Wanderers spokesman said: “The current agreement is with Hanwha Solar. This is a business which operates only and exclusively in the renewable energy sector.

“The Chinese-based company was acquired by Hanwha 12 months ago, and the club has no direct dealing or relationship with any other Hanwha Group company.”

The firm has signed deals with Inter Milan and Hamburg SV as well as Bolton Wanderers.

Ted Hou, Hanwha Solar’s vice-president of marketing, said Hanwha Solar One was “totally unrelated to other business groups in Hanwha”.