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Barcelona gets $200 million deal with Qatar Foundation
BBC, December 10th, 2010 5:01PM
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Barcelona has ended its long-term stance of refusing commercial shirt sponsorship by signing a record a five-year, $200 million deal with the Qatar Foundation.

The club had never sold its jersey space for advertisement, but for the last five years sported the Unicef logo while the club donated at least $2 million annually to the children charity. Unicef will share shirt space with the new sponsors.

The Qatar Foundation, a non-profit concerned primarily with education projects in the Middle East, will pay Barcelona $40 a year through 2016. Liverpool, Manchester United and Real Madrid each earn about $32 million a year in shirt sponsorship; Bayern Munich about $36 million.

The Qatar Foundation is chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of the Emir, who was central to Qatar's final World Cup bid last week. The new sponsorship could free up some transfer funds for Coach Pep Guardiola -- who worked as an ambassador for Qatar's successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup. A July an audit revealed Barcelona's debt to be $585 million after a loss of more than $100 million in the 2009/10 season.

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0 comments
  1. Carlos Thys
    commented on: December 11, 2010 at 6:59 p.m.
    So...now we know just a little more. Inch by inch, small story by small revelations, we learn how decisions are bought. Thanks, Pep. You're no different than anyone else. Sell your soul for a bag of gold. FC Barca is not much different than any other club. (Note what FC Schalke 04 wears on its shirt as primary club sponsor.) No mores to be found anywhere. Note: Just read this on a Qatari tourism site describing when to best visit if you come: "The weather is blazing (the word is more like mercilessly) hot; Qataris leave the country to vacation elsewhere at this time (of the year)." So don't be looking for any right backs like Danny Alves to be sprinting from one touch line to the other.... One more World Cup (like South Africa 2010) where they have to give away tickets to create the impression of filled stands.


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