Barca show their true colours

It just proved that Unicef logo was a toe in the water and it was always their plan to get a big shirt deal.

PHB wrote: »

Well I think its actually worse than other clubs. They used and abused a charity in order to transition to it. They took the charity on, took loads of plaudits about how they were more than a club, etc, etc, then did exactly what I expected, used it to transition to a commercial logo.

They basically used unicef in order to make money. They coulda had some balls and just switched straight away, but didn't. And te fact that they switched to a not-for-profit, who are still paying commerical rates, it says it all.

Jebus, bitter much? They sponsor UNICEF and have their logo on their jersey. They're still going to sponsor UNICEF and have their logo on their jersey, but as well as that they're going to have an actual sponsor on their jersey. Oh the horror of it all, what a horrendous club Barca really are. We knew it all along and now we've been vindicated!

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

No they don't. A number of Spanish clubs wear regional flag colours and its considered disrespectful to sully those colors with a sponsor. Athletic Bilbao are the highest profile example. Barca had the same policy until about 5 years ago when they gave UNICEF free space, presumably so no purist fan could object, and then later sell the rights to a corporate company (as the theory goes).

Shirt sponsorshio is a huge bone of contention for a lot of clubs in Spain.

Athletic Bilbao had to change this rule last season too, more than likely because of the financial strain, i believe there shirt sponsor Petronor are a business from the Basque region though.

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

No they don't. A number of Spanish clubs wear regional flag colours and its considered disrespectful to sully those colors with a sponsor. Athletic Bilbao are the highest profile example. Barca had the same policy until about 5 years ago when they gave UNICEF free space, presumably so no purist fan could object, and then later sell the rights to a corporate company (as the theory goes).

Shirt sponsorshio is a huge bone of contention for a lot of clubs in Spain.

eh, no, it isn't. It is/was an issue at Athletic Bilbao and FC Barcelona but every other club has happily sought/worn commercial sponsorship for years.

Neither Athletic's nor Barcelona's colours are those of their local region and the fashion for mini regional flags on shirts is a phenomenon of the last few years and has nothing to do with sponsorship.

There are several clubs which wear the regional colours (am thinking of Celta, Betis, Oviedo, Murcia (?)) but as far as I know there has never been a debate at those clubs about not having a shirt sponsor.

Sr. Pirotecnic wrote: »

Basque flag: green, white, red
Athletic shirt: red and white (copied from Sunderland?)

This is really not a good example to be using to try to support your argument...
I do like how you swap the order from white and red in the first line, to red and white in the second line though.

Great news - the biggest and best club in the world just keeps on getting bigger and better. Good to see Unicef will still be receiving money for being on the shirt too plus The Qatar Foundation is a non-profit organisation concerned primarily with education projects in the Middle East.

What a club, as Andy Gray says "Take a bow son".

I haven't strayed onto the Daily Mail website by mistake have I. Let's all hate the Russians and the Qataris because England didn't get the World Cup, build a bridge get over it.

Exactly. I've no problem with clubs having sponsors on their jerseys. Lets just realise that the reason Barca wanted a charity on their jersey was not some selfless act, it was purely designed to transition to a commerical sponsor.

patmac wrote: »

I haven't strayed onto the Daily Mail website by mistake have I. Let's all hate the Russians and the Qataris because England didn't get the World Cup, build a bridge get over it.

Who mentioned Russia? And are we not allowed to be disgusted by the decsion to award Qatar the WC judging things on their own merits rather than being influenced by the jingoistic english media?? Some of us do have our own minds but you decided to lump us all in with the Daily Mail reading little englanders did you?

PHB wrote: »

Exactly. I've no problem with clubs having sponsors on their jerseys. Lets just realise that the reason Barca wanted a charity on their jersey was not some selfless act, it was purely designed to transition to a commerical sponsor.

Hang on ... you actually believe that forgoing a sponsor for five years was a commercial move to make more money?

Read this thread and got really angry at certain replies from people who are just unbelievably misinformed, but eventually I just relaxed and realised it's only the internet. :P :P

Firstly, people thinking Barca are 'more than a club' because of how they try to conduct themselves on and off the pitch are just misinformed. Barcelona are 'mes que un club' because during the fascist movement in Spain, the Catalan people were banned from displaying any ideals of the Catalan culture. The language was banned, and people were at times shot for speaking Catalan in the streets.

The Camp Nou was the only place in Catalunya where it was safe for Catalan's to congregate and practice their beliefs. For that reason the club was seem as the only real symbol of the Catalan people during Franco's regime. That's the reason why it's seen as 'more than a club'. It's nothing to do with Barca having delusions of grandeur and thinking they are the only pure angels in a sport that has become commercialised. If sky or any other outlet speak about the 'mes que un club' as anything other than what I wrote above then they are hugely misinformed.

Secondly, looking at the sponsorship deal as objectively as possible, I'm feeling very mixed. It would be naive for me to think that in the modern game where Barca are hundreds of millions of euro in debt that they can continue without one. So it's good that at least there is another financial outlet to help the club financially. The club is heavily sponsored as it is, you only have to go to the Camp Nou to see how much we have been from the likes of herbalife, audi, and estrella damm. It's just the nature of the sport right now. I just hope for the life of me that the Qatar money isn't from some dodgy source, they hardly have a sparkling liberalism and altruistic reputation.

Obviously I'm very proud of the club with the unicef deal. It's not just an advertising deal, they also donate large sums of money to the organisation every year. This deal also remains in place despite taking up the Qatar sponsorship. So it's hardly like they are dropping unicef on their ass while they money grab. Also, how dare some of you villify a team for donating to charity. At the end of the day, who gives a sh*t what the clubs intentions are when donating money to charity, the money is still going to help save lives, it's not like a euro from a crook is worth less than a euro from a saint. Serious moral high horses among some of yous.

I'm slightly gutted about adding the actual sponsor to the jersey. I loved the unsponsored jersey, it just looked classy. I got over the unicef jersey, as afterall it is only a good thing, not like a horrible beer company or something. However with two sponsors it is going to look absolutely atrocious. It'll be like a bad Ligue One team, there's even rumours of printing on the back of shorts. FFS like, I'll just have to stock up on jersey from the past 5 years. :P

Ideally the unicef sticker would be put on the sleeve, and just put the Qatar Foundation on the front. I'd be gutted if it ended up like this;



As the poster above said, it's something that Barca fans will be pissed off with for a few months, and eventually you get used to it. It's always the case. I'm a bit 50/50 on the situation, I know some people that will be distraught though. If Athletic Bilbao can get used to it though, we can too, just hope it isn't a monstrosity.







tl;dr version - Barca are super dooper good at footballz.