Four new sponsors sneak into the pools for the Barça shirt

Renewal stuck at FC Barcelona. And this time it is not about Ousmane Dembelé, whose refusal to remain linked to the club has cost him to be removed from the dynamics of first team matches while waiting for his departure to be resolved in January, as Culemanía already advanced a few weeks ago. In this case, Barça is stuck in negotiations to renew the sponsor of the shirt. Rakuten will not continue but the entity has not yet tied the relay, with the consequent complication that this entails for Nike, whose production process is stopped.

Sources linked to the North American firm informed Culemanía that, normally, the production processes start nine months before the product goes on sale. The deadlines have already been met by far and the solution that is envisaged is nothing short of bells and whistles: print the shirts without a sponsor and have the stores themselves take care of the printing when they receive the product. "It is a less than optimal formula, but there is no other option," they say. Meanwhile, Laporta and his commercial revenue managers keep looking.

Laporta wants to double the income

In recent days, possibilities have begun to filter incessantly. As if by magic, Barça has come to have six proposals on the table. Two of them, apparently unfeasible: Spotify, an audiovisual giant that does not have the profile to get involved in this type of sponsorship, and Vegan Nation Services, another Israeli company that is a friend of Laporta that does not generate excessive confidence considering the recent precedents with companies from the same country. The Non Fungible Tokens scandal with Ownix ​​is ​​still going strong. Although from Sport they assure that this practically unknown company is willing to put up 80 million euros for the first team shirt, sleeve and training clothes. Other sources believe that they only want to do them a favor and enhance the company's brand value.

Hiroshi Mikitani, Leo Messi, Neymar Junior and Gerard Piqué in an act of Rakuten / FC Barcelona

It is necessary to remember that in the last years, the Barça had exploited part of these concepts of separate form. Before, Rakuten paid 55 million for the first team shirt alone, and Beko paid around 19 million for the sleeve and training clothes. At that time, Leo Messi and Neymar Junior were still at Barça. In recent years, with the cuts due to Covid, Rakuten started to pay 30 million a year and Beko practically half, 10 million a year. Therefore, Laporta aspires to double the current income, going from 40 to 80 million for the same concepts. Already in the campaign, he assured that this was his objective.

The four cryptocurrency alternatives

The question is to see which of the numerous options that are sounding is really serious. In addition to the aforementioned Spotify and Vegan Nation, there are four other alternatives that have gained prominence in recent days, according to the specialized portal Footy Headlines. Most are located in the field of cryptocurrencies. One of them, Tencent, would be directly linked to Vegan Nation, according to journalist Toni Frieros. It is an Asian technology company that is considered to be one of the largest in the world, valued at 500,000 million euros and specialized in the so-called metaverse. Although details of the negotiation are not known, it could make the collaboration with Vegan Nation viable so that one would occupy the shirt and the other the sleeve, for example.

Montage of 'Mundo Deportivo' and 'Footy Headlines' about Barça's possible sponsors in the new shirt / FH

At the same time, another firm in the cryptocurrency sector is making its way, a world that has become very fashionable at the Camp Nou since the arrival of Joan Laporta. The firm in question is called Polkadot. Although it is true that under the supervision of the previous director responsible for technology, Dídac Lee, Barça has already made great strides in this area, with the president's victory at the polls it seems that the club has notably increased interest in this sector in which Laporta himself has done business during his years away from Barça.

Montage by 'Mundo Deportivo' on how the Barça shirt would look if it were sponsored by FTX or Binance / FOOTY HEADLINES

On the other hand, there are two other possibilities associated with the same sector that were advanced by Mundo Deportivo. In this case it is the companies FTX and Binance. Both companies have experience in the world of sport, which could be a positive aspect to facilitate this collaboration. FTX is closely linked to the US market and has sponsored both baseball and basketball clubs. Binance, for its part, has sponsored European football clubs such as Lazio and Porto. In this case, there is talk that they could pay around 60 million, double what Rakuten pays, which is not ruled out one hundred percent of the negotiations either. At least still.