FC Barcelona have broken the world record for a shirt sponsor deal in football by signing a massive one with Japanese E-Commerce giants Rakuten. This has resulted in the club ending their deal with Qatar who had been their sponsor for several years now.
It is the financial strength of the Japan-based company that has prompted the move from Barcelona. The organisation boasted record profits of £5.24billion last year and the Catalans decided this would be the perfect time to approach them.
Qatar airways were not expecting this from the club and were hoping their partnership would be renewed. But that has not been the case and Barcelona will now have the name Rakuten printed on their jerseys.
The deal is worth £50 million smashing all previous records for shirt sponsorship deals. This means they will receive over £200 million over the next five years which is a massive amount of money.
The club also have the Asian market in mind and hence the reason for trying to find a growing brand from the continent to partner up with. Barcelona released a statement regarding the same:
“FC Barcelona and Rakuten Inc., a dynamic global company leading the way in e-commerce, communications, digital content and FinTech services for consumers and businesses around the world, have reached an agreement for the Japanese company to become the main global sponsor of the Club and to appear on the front of the first team’s jersey for the next four seasons, beginning in 2017/18.”
President Josep Bartomeu also said it was Gerard Pique who took the initiative of making the deal happen for the club after he scheduled the initial meeting between the two partners.
The defender set it up as a meeting over dinner back in 2015 and it built the foundation for the agreement with the E-Commerce giant. Pique has stated before that he one day wants to be president of the club and Bartomeu believes he has the right tools to do that as well.
Gerard Pique destined for administration role?
All this talk about Pique and handling business has got many thinking that he will actually end up taking a role at the club after his playing career is over. The defender has been saying for a long time that he would like to be president and it looks like the club are encouraging his behaviour as well.
But with a good chunk of his career still ahead of him it might be wiser for him to concentrate on football rather than matters outside of it. If he really did set up the meeting for this huge deal then he is probably destined for presidency at the club.
