The music streaming giant, Spotify, is to pay FC Barcelona €280 million over three seasons in exchange for sponsorship of the first-team kits and for naming rights of the Camp Nou stadium, according to reports. The deal, which has not yet been officially announced by the board, would be a first for the historic but crisis-hit club.
According to the Catalan RAC1 radio, the deal will include sponsorship on the shirts for both the men’s and women’s teams as well as Barça’s training kit. The Japanese electronic commerce company Rakuten currently sponsors the club’s jersey but the agreement is set to end at the end of the current season.
The club’s financial struggles are well known and this spike in revenue will be welcomed by the club. The club has been slowly restructuring its finances after picking up huge debts because of the Coronavirus pandemic and poor management by previous administrators. Barcelona couldn’t keep Lionel Messi after last season because of its financial struggles.
The reports also state that the ‘title rights’ for the Camp Nou are included in the Spotify agreement. The specifics of this are not yet clear, but a name-change for the club’s famous stadium could be controversial. Ever since it opened its doors to replace Camp de Les Corts, Camp Nou has never had a name change. According to RAC1, the new official name will be Spotify Camp Nou as soon as the deal between both parties becomes official.
It is not the first time that Spotify has been linked with football. In the wake of the European Super League debacle last year, the company’s co-founder and CEO Daniel Ek expressed an interest in purchasing Arsenal from the Kroenke family. Ek even claimed that he had ‘secured funds’ for the purchase in April, although no concrete bid ever materialised.
Barcelona’s CEO Ferran Reverter resigned on Tuesday amid the club’s negotiations for the new sponsorship deal with Spotify.
Barcelona said Reverter informed club president Joan Laporta he had to leave ‘for personal and family reasons’.
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