In 2007, FC Barcelona broke with 107 years of tradition by wearing a logo on its shirt, in the form of the worldwide children’s charity, UNICEF. Recently, FC Barcelona was forced to take out a 150 million Euro loan as it moves into the 2010/2011 season. Bearing in mind the huge sums of money involved in football sponsorship deals, is it time for FCB to break completely with tradition and sell the rights to its shirt to the highest bidder?

JOSÉ LUIS FERRANDO

Socio Director

The altruism and generosity of F. C. Barcelona would be more than acceptable and good in times of general economic prosperity. No doubt, the fact that F. C. Barcelona is one of the few clubs in the world that does not have commercial publicity on their shirts but, the fact that they give publicity to a charitable organisation, makes the club unique and singular.

Nevertheless, in my opinion, in current times I think it would be good to think about convenience and not this kind of charitable collaboration, and the club should consider obtaining some additional income by selling those rights to an international sponsor.

The estimated value for publicity on the F. C. Barcelona shirt would be, I think, around 17 and 20 million euros per year. From a global perspective, I would think to include commercial publicity on the F.C. Barcelona shirt.

CARLOS CAMPOS

Director

In football, a brand logo is as relevant as the corner flag. We know that they are there but we don’t make any particular effort to look at them. The challenge for the brand or company is to do something that makes the brand relevant to the fans and heightens their experience of  the game. But, how is this done? By placing their logo on the shirt? Absolutely. Just with this the company achieves association with the club, media exposure and brand awareness. But, creating brand awareness is not the same as instilling trust and belief in a brand,  which is achieved when this association (brand/team) offers information, entertainment and memorable experience. Chevrolet and Hyundai are excellent examples. Who is the sponsor of the Spanish team? Who capitalised most on the team’s success in South Africa?  Chevrolet sponsored the Spanish team yet Hyundai were an official sponsor of the World Cup, thus associating themselves with the whole experience.

Mr. Rossell, you will probably become the first professional Director  of  sports marketing. When you were Vice-President, you declared that  “in 15 years at Nike, you didn’t see one efficient method of measuring  return on investment, not even through media analysis companies, of  all these evaluations, the only one that matters is the satisfaction  of the sponsor”. Let’s go with brands that are thus satisfied with this. “I will pay to be able to say that thanks to sponsorship in  other areas, Barça can continue to help UNICEF”, says Xavier Sala i Martin, ex-Treasurer of FCB. But, what will the people say? That Barça helps UNICEF or it is the brand that helps UNICEF? Sala i Martin is not a marketing man. Mr. Rosell, you are. Barça should continue with UNICEF and should continue being the only big club in the world without commercial publicity on its shirt.

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Carlos Campos

Director

ManagingSport.com

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José Luis Ferrando

Socio Director

Managing Partner Actis Leisure and Sports S.L.

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