MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Barcelona signs £ 125 million commercial shirt-sponsorship deal with Qatar

According to football analysts, currently the top club of the world

One of Spain’s two most popular and successful football clubs, Barcelona has signed their first ever commercial shirt sponsorship deal after agreeing a record £125m contract with the Qatar Foundation.

News of the five-year deal, which will be worth £25m a year from next season, follows an audit this summer that revealed the Catalan giants’ debt to be £369.5m after the La Liga club posted a loss of over £64m last season.

The Spanish league leaders have been paying Unicef to carry the children charity’s logo on their shirts and will continue to do so next season, with the Qatar Foundation’s emblem set to be displayed alongside it.

A Barcelona statement read: “Qatar Foundation will join Unicef on the Barça’s team’s shirts as part of the agreement and over the next month the new look logo will be designed and presented. Nike will then be able to include the design on the front of the kit for next season.”

The Qatar Foundation is a non-profit organisation which mainly deals with developing education projects in the Middle East. It is chaired by Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of the Emir, who was central to Qatar’s final 2022 World Cup bid last week.

Barça executives said the deal was “a remarkable milestone because it represents a record level of revenue for a football club and has more value still in the current economic climate”.