ANDl commercial department of FC Barcelona has started a few key months in which it will have to look for alternatives to agreements with Rakuten Y Beko, the two main sponsors of the shirt that end their contract, to try to keep the 180 million euros per year that enters this area, besides facing other challenges of vital importance for the Barcelona economy.
The 180 million in sponsorships are the objective that Barcelona has set itself, according to sources from the club, who assume that it will be practically impossible to increase this figure during the first two years of Laporta’s mandate due to the difficult global economic situation caused. due to the coronavirus pandemic and the current weaknesses of the entity.
Rakuten, the main sponsor of the Barça shirt, is about to start his last year of contract, in which he will reduce the annual figure he contributes from 55 million euros more variable to 30 more variable. And in the summer of 2022 the sponsorship will be terminated.
In any case, the commercial department of Barça is working so that this alliance can be extended beyond this date. The problem that is assumed, as explained by those responsible for this area, is that to ask the Japanese brand again for figures similar to those it has paid until 2021, a very interesting proposal will have to be made.
And this time, unlike when Rakuten started as a sponsor, Neymar and Luis Suárez are no longer there, and it will be seen how long Leo Messi continues, the three assets with which the Barça club was then sold from the commercial side.
Moderate optimism
In this sense, Joan Laporta explained on Friday at his first press conference as president of the Barça club that “they are talking with Rakuten to renew the contract and I am sure that Mr. Mikitani (the head of the Japanese giant) will be interested in doing so with what that he likes Barça “.
That said, he also clarified that “the club is beginning to receive important offers for the shirt, in addition to the opportunities that are coming to improve other current sponsorships and activate sponsorship categories that have not been used until now.”
Nike has set the month of October as a limit for Barça to tell it which will be the main sponsor of the shirt for the 2022-2023 course, at the risk of having to pay a penalty if it exceeds this date. The reason is that the North American multinational needs this advance to be able to manufacture the hundreds of thousands of shirts that will go on sale.
On the other hand, Beko, the sponsor of the training clothes and the left sleeve of the game shirt for 19 million euros per year, will no longer appear in the next season in the match clothing and will reduce his contribution to 10 millions.
Thus, the left sleeve of the Barça shirt will be free and Barça will have a free chance to find a new sponsor. But for the moment the operation is far from over. According to workers in the commercial area, there was a proposal on the table during the spring that did not move forward and right now there is no other well defined.
Preseason for Germany and Israel
At the same time, from the commercial department, with the head of the tours Albert Dalmau at the head, they are working on this summer’s preseason, which if there is not a radical last-minute change, it will take place in Germany and Israel, despite that within the club there are some reluctance towards the second destination because of the political situation in the territory.
In fact, some members of the same department explain that they fear that fate may close doors when it comes to finding sponsorships for Barça in the Arab world and they would have preferred that the club work on the possibility that they had to go to pre-season friendlies at USA.
To all this, they complain of having few troops to be able to face the aforementioned challenges with sufficient guarantees. Laporta already had to improvise a plan B when Cinto Ajram, who was his chosen to lead this area, finally resigned for family reasons.
His replacement was Jordi Camps, who until then was in charge of Barça’s Hong Kong office and had a very good relationship with Xavier Asensi, the previous commercial director who left the club in January before the elections.
Then Marc Masagué arrived and once Laporta won the elections, Judith Rubinat was dispensed with and Maria Bañeres was signed, precisely from Beko.
Camp Nou surname
Meanwhile, from the commercial department it is also said that during the tenure of Josep Maria Bartomeu they spoke with dozens of companies interested in the ‘naming rights’ (the name of the stadium) of the Camp Nou and none of them reached the figure that was I asked him, which was out of the market according to the club workers themselves.
Now, the negotiations are stopped and nobody is so optimistic as to think that any company can offer something decent before it is known when the new Camp Nou will finally be a reality.
