FC Barcelona, the unbeatable world “Football” Champion who won the most titles in past three years including the 2011 UEFA Champions League title, was renowned for their long term stance of refusing commercial shirt sponsorship.
In 2006, the club announced a five year agreement with UNICEF, which includes having the UNICEF logo on their shirt. The Catalan club has donated €1.5m (which equals to $2.3m) each year, abiding by the agreement.
With the increasing debt, as sizeable as £369.5m, the club seemed unable to keep their star players. Finally in the winter of 2010 Barcelona had to have ended their noble-minded practice of refusing commercial shirt sponsorship, which had been kept since its founding in 1899, by signing a record £125m ($192m) contract with the Qatar Foundation. The Catalan’s jersey still carries the UNICEF logo on their back, but the children’s charity had to yield the prior positioning to the new comer.
El Barça’s deadly, Spanish rival Real Madrid, and Liverpool and Manchester United, the overseas competitors with worldwide reputation all earn about £20m a year in regards to their values; considering the amount their rivals receive, Barcelona’s new agreement has revealed the club to be “the undisputed brand leader in world football.”
The Flying Dutchman Johan Cruyff, a Barcelona legend, severely criticized his former club for selling the team’s uniqueness for six per cent of their annual budget. From the interview with El Periodico de Catalunya, Cruyff said, “We are a unique club in world football, no one has kept their jersey intact throughout history, yet remained so competitive.” He added, “I understand that we are currently losing more than we are earning. However, by selling the shirt it shows me that we are not being creative, and that we have become vulgar.”
The expensive shirt ad is the Qatari group’s aggressive marketing approach (maybe not, considering their oil money) to reveal them by the world’s most popular team of the world’s most popular sport; however, the recent move of the Catalans, having them as a marketer, may not be the optimal approach to keep their societal, cultural value that the club had passed on throughout the history.
To be continued… FC Barcelona & Qatar Foundation Part II: Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup and the Dirty (Oil) Money
Tags: Barcelona · FC Barcelona · Johan Cruyff · The Qatar Foundation1 Comment
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