Reversing roles, FC Barcelona pays its "sponsor"

This is unheard of: a world-class football (soccer) club that pays to put somebody's logo on its players' jerseys. That's Spain's FC Barcelona, Europe's reigning champion, which is donating US$ 1.9 million per year to UNICEF over the next five years and will start displaying the UN's Children Fund logo on the players' chests - the übercoveted place where other clubs put the brands of the highest bidder (Manchester United-AIG: 25 million US$ a year or so; Chelsea-Samsung: 18; AC Milan-Bwin: approximately 13; etc) and where Barcelona, in its 107-year history, had never put anything but its own emblem. And those are the chests of some of the world's best - and most admired by kids - players, such as Ronaldinho, Messi, Eto'o, Zambrotta. Barcelona's engagement in favour of UNICEF will include actively supporting anti-AIDS campaigns in Swaziland and providing aid to children orphaned by it. While remaining a sport club and a business (its stadium can hold 98'000 people), FC Barcelona is showing once again that it's more than that. Go Barça!

Comments

[Evan Powell]

Great posts. Barca and Google have something in common --> corporate self-confidence. They are each secure enough in their own skin, I think, to try new approaches. Too often the highly successful firms become risk adverse, loose their creativity, stagnate and decline. It is refreshing to see both Barca and Google doing good -- in their own way.

[Barcelona]

That really is breaking the mould. If more corporate companies followed suit we would go a long way to helping people less fortunate nand making this world a more equal place. Selfless directors are hard to find though...

[DAVID]

How Bacerlona benefit with its sponsorship to unicef?