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Barcelona sell shirt sponsorship...


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Barcelona sell shirt sponsorship for the first time as Qatar Foundation pay £125m to share space with Unicef

Barcelona will sell sponsorship space on their shirts for the first time in the 2011-12 season, after agreeing a £125m five-year deal with the Qatar Foundation that becomes the most expensive deal of its kind in football.

By Steve Wilson 10:45AM GMT 10 Dec 2010

 

Until as recently as 2005 Barcelona’s famous shirt bore no logo as they eschewed the chance to profit from sponsors.

 

For the last five years the club has actually paid for the privilege of having the name of Unicef, the international children’s charity, on their shirts, in a deal that to many reaffirmed Barcelona’s status as ‘mes que un club’, as they like to describe themselves.

 

However, the economic realities of modern football, and the impending financial fair play rules for European competition, appear to have caught up with the Catalans and the deal struck with the Qatar Foundation, a non-profit organisation concerned primarily with education projects in the Middle East, far exceeds anything commanded by other major European clubs.

Manchester United and Real Madrid both earn a little over £20m a year for their rights while Bayern Munich make closer to £23m.

 

"With this agreement, Barca have become the undisputed brand leader in world football, far ahead of international rivals," said vice-presidents Javier Faus.

 

The logo of the Qatar Foundation, which is chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of the Emir, who was central to Qatar’s final presentation to Fifa when the tiny gas-rich Gulf state won the right to host the 2022 World Cup finals last week, will share space on Barca’s kit with the current Unicef logo.

 

Senior club executives said the deal was a “remarkable milestone because it represents a record level of revenue for a football club and has more value still in the current economic climate”.

 

 

Can't see the fans being happy with this one but then again they are skint.

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It was always going to happen. It was the most obvious thing in the world and I said it in the thread when they first put Unicef on their shirts that this was to lead the way to getting proper paying sponsorship. 'tis the way of the world.

 

Yep the fans over there were very sceptical when the Unicef deal was announced, it was like they were breaking them in slowly to the idea.

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Sad day my arse. Barca are so fucking arrogant their business plan was to survive without shirt sponsorship? Total shit, rather than having sponsorship they were getting working capital loans at preferential interest rates from Spanish banks. There is only 1 other club in world football who get by on such blatant corruption and they also happen to play in Spain.

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they will be like a brazilian team in no time,with sponsors on their sleves and on the arse of their shorts..

 

Never mind Brazilian clubs. Have you seen what they do in Scandinavia? For example, this is Jari Litmanen playing for Lahti in Finland.

 

Litmanen250.jpg

 

A decade ago he was playing for a club with no sponsors on the kit.

 

And Barca are not skint. What they are doing is facing up to economic reality. The Spanish economy is really in trouble so it would be much more difficult for Spanish financial institutions to be seen to be propping up a football club when everybody else is struggling. A lot of economists are predicting that Spain will need an Ireland-style EU bailout soon. Perhaps Barca have just taken some pre-emptive action. In any case, it's not a huge corporate sponsor they'll be displaying.

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And Barca are not skint. What they are doing is facing up to economic reality. The Spanish economy is really in trouble so it would be much more difficult for Spanish financial institutions to be seen to be propping up a football club when everybody else is struggling. A lot of economists are predicting that Spain will need an Ireland-style EU bailout soon. Perhaps Barca have just taken some pre-emptive action. In any case, it's not a huge corporate sponsor they'll be displaying.

 

 

Barcelona failed to pay their players at the end of June, club president Sandro Rosell has revealed.

Rosell, who succeeded Joan Laporta at the financially troubled Catalan outfit last week, also said a loan of about £125m had been secured to pay wages.

"We found a club in debt, with liquidity problems. At this point we have to take a loan to pay the wages of the players," he told Sport.

But Rosell said Barca can still afford Arsenal midfielder Cesc Fabregas.

Barca recently sold defender Dmitro Chygrynskiy to Shakhtar Donetsk for about £12.5m to help raise much-needed funds, even though coach Pep Guardiola had been keen to keep him.

 

The club is not bankrupt because it generates income

Sandro Rosell

They also sold Ivory Coast international Yaya Toure to Manchester City for about £20m.

However, Rosell has moved to reassure worried fans that Barca's problems are under control and that the process of securing a loan had already started under the previous board.

"The banks know that we have a business plan that will allow them to recover the money. The club is not bankrupt because it generates income," he added.

"The members shouldn't be afraid because it is under control. We must resolve this tension.

"It can be done in two ways: to have extra income, like selling Chygrynskiy, and/or taking a loan, which is what we have done.

"The previous board had already begun this process. We followed the same path - the same banks, the same target but with a different business plan. They [Laporta's board] also knew they needed this credit."

And Rosell even claimed that over 50m euros (about £41m) would still be available to spend on new players.

 

606: DEBATE

I would not let Fabregas go, no matter how much he wants to

MK

Despite their financial issues, Barcelona have been pursuing Arsenal star Fabregas for some time and recently signed Spain striker David Villa from Valencia.

Rosell intends to meet Gunners manager Arsene Wenger in South Africa shortly to discuss a deal for Fabregas, who started his career at the Nou Camp.

"It's now or never. We'll do it fast. It won't be protracted," said Rosell.

"I'll try to see Wenger in South Africa, then we'll tell you what happens.

"We would not pay the 50-60m euros that I have read about. If Arsenal do not go crazy, he might play at Barca.

"There will be 50m euros to sign more players. This is the case every year. This is our plan for the future.

"Technically, as of now we have 50m euros plus 15 for Chygrynskiy and 24 for Toure. In total, 89m euros (about £75m)."

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/europe/8797183.stm

 

 

Obviously they are not skint, but they are certainly not 'pre-emptive' action on their behalf. They didnt have the funds to pay players wages and needed to borrow in order to do so. Most companies would be told to fuck off in those circumstances.

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Apparently, the Qatar Foundation is a non-profit. A non-profit that just spent 9 figures to advertise itself on a football club's shirts.

 

Qatar bought Pep Guardiola's endorsement for the 2022 bid, and is paying out the nose to advertise a government-owned "foundation" on his team's shirts.

 

I understand the thinking here....Qatar has loads of cash; the World Cup is an advert for the nation, and will (the thinking goes) help the nation broaden its recognition, thus bringing in business after 2022; Guardiola is the coach of one of the world's most recognizable and followed clubs; buying an advert on that club's shirts will also increase recognition.

 

But the fact that it ALL goes back to oil and petrodollars just makes my skin crawl. UNICEF alongside a "foundation" run by an authoritarian country? "More than just a club" is right.

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Slightly off topic, but why do Ireland shirts have a sponsor on them? Right now it's Eircom but I remember they used to have Opel. The players' shirts are sponsor-free just like every other national team shirt. I know a lot of national teams have sponsor, but they only display sponsors' logos to training gear.

 

Back on topic, cast your minds back to the comments made by former FA Chairman Lord Triesman a few months ago. He claimed there was some sort of collusion between Spain and Qatar in the bid voting. It was looked into by FIFA's ethics commission who found no further grounds for investigation. Yet one week on from the vote, a Qatari organisation (linked to the government, as are Qatar's sporting associations) announces that it's pumping millions into the Spanish game (OK, Barca are a proxy for this) via a shirt sponsorship deal. It may just be a coincidence, but perhaps this is what TommyW was hinting at in his earlier post.

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Back on topic, cast your minds back to the comments made by former FA Chairman Lord Triesman a few months ago. He claimed there was some sort of collusion between Spain and Qatar in the bid voting. It was looked into by FIFA's ethics commission who found no further grounds for investigation. Yet one week on from the vote, a Qatari organisation (linked to the government, as are Qatar's sporting associations) announces that it's pumping millions into the Spanish game (OK, Barca are a proxy for this) via a shirt sponsorship deal. It may just be a coincidence, but perhaps this is what TommyW was hinting at in his earlier post.

 

Guardiola received mucho dinero to support the Qatar bid.

 

The Iberian bloc voted Qatar for the 2022 vote.

 

Barcelona gets a sweet shirt deal from a Qatari-run organization.

 

Lots of back and forth here.

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Guest Francie Brady

Sad day ! My local gaelic football club is looking like its going to have to get a sponsor on the front our jersey for the first time in its history this year. I hate the idea myself ,especially when the money from it will probably only pay off a months interest on our debt.

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Guest TesticleOReilly

It's a blow for the common good when a club of the people like Barca has to finally relent and bring in shirt sponsorship, if you ignore that big fuck off Nike swoosh on their chests and the gazillion dollar sponsorship that came with it.

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