Barcelona have largest shirt sponsorship offer in football history

Barcelona are going through a delicate moment financially and on the pitch, but the club's brand remains strong. As the sports club with the most followers on the planet on social media (counting Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms), they continue to be an attractive proposition for huge companies that want to be associated with them.

The current situation at Barça is that inside six months, their two most important shirt sponsorship deals will expire, with Rakuten and Beko. However, on the table they have several offers, one of which would be the biggest ever in the football industry, to take over the sponsorship of their kit next season. The club are studying the offers at the moment to decide which one to choose, given that some of these firms belong to the same market: cryptocurrencies.

As revealed by ARA, VeganNation are also in talks with the club. Their CEO Isaac Thomas has met personally with Joan Laporta. Barça have also met with representatives from Polkadot and Spotify.

VeganNation Services LTD is a public company in the United States that is publicly traded on the OTC market. VeganNation's mission is to create a global community based on sustainability, which is why it has launched its own cryptocurrency, GreenCoin, considered the first 'token' to build a new green economy. In the world, currently, more than one billion people use the digital wallet almost exclusively through the smartphone.

VeganNation wants to become, through its 'marriage' with FC Barcelona, a global example and thus form the first community or consortium of athletes and clubs who want to live in a greener and more sustainable world. VeganNation has made an offer to FC Barcelona to become its main sponsor for the next few years. The offer for the front of the shirt, the sleeve and the training clothes would far exceed the sum of Rakuten and Beko.

But there is more, VeganNation has also presented a second option to FC Barcelona, a joint venture by the Asian giant Tencent, the largest technology company in the world that wants to offer its services to this new community that is growing more every day. Tencent, valued at more than 500,000 million dollars, is interested, through one of its subsidiaries, in opening different lines of business with FC Barcelona, especially in a new market niche, the Metaverse. It is about bringing virtual reality closer to consumers, who could enjoy a Barça match wherever they are in the world as if they were at the Camp Nou. Facebook, without going any further, is pouring huge amounts of money into this virtual business.

The economic amount of this alliance has not been quantified, but those who know this market calculate that we are talking about figures never paid in the football industry that could put an end to FC Barcelona's debt, in addition to financing a large part of the new Camp Nou. VegaNation would keep the shirt (front and/or sleeve + training clothes) and the Tencent subsidiary with all the exploitation of the new technologies.

Other candidates

Meanwhile, FC Barcelona are studying other sponsorship proposals with interest. Spotify's has been thoroughly analysed and is on the table to be the main sponsor of the shirt. This option would free up the sleeve and training kit, which could be for Green Coin, VeganNation's cryptocurrency. The sum of both amounts would probably exceed 100 million euros per year.

However, as SPORT advanced on Saturday in its online edition, talks with Polkadot, launched by the creator of Ethereum, are also very advanced. Its virtual currency is the Dot, so it would be impossible for FC Barcelona to bet on VeganNation and Polkadot at the same time. This last company also offers much higher amounts of money than what Rakuten had been paying.

Both the president of FC Barcelona and the CEO Ferran Reverter, together with those responsible for marketing at the club, have to choose which is the best option for the interests of the club, which is in a position to sign the largest sponsorship contract in the football industry... and leave behind its economic crisis.