Barca seals RM254m deal with Rakuten
can become the BARCELONA: Spanish giants FC Barcelona sealed a massive shirt sponsorship deal on Wednesday with Japanese online retailer Rakuten worth at least €55 million (RM254 million) a year.
One of world football’s most lucrative shirt sponsorship deals sees Japan’s leading e-commerce company replace Qatar Airways, Barcelona’s shirt sponsor since 2013, confirming Asia’s appetite for major investment in European football.
at the start of the Bundesliga season.
The deal, which begins in the 2017-18 season, will last for four years.
With the pulling power of top stars like Lionel Messi and Neymar, Barcelona’s success on the pitch ensures the club exerts a huge draw on advertisers.
“The base contract is €55 million per year, with a bonus of €1.5 million per year if the club win the La Liga and €5 million if they win the Champions League,” Barcelona’s head of marketing, Manel Arroyo, told a news conference at the Nou Camp.
Qatar Airways were reported to have paid €35 million for the final year of their deal taking them up to the end of the 2016-17 season.
Barcelona’s new sponsorship deal however falls short of the seven-year deal which Manchester United signed with Chevrolet which will earn the English club US$560 million (RM2.4 billion) — about US$80 million per year.
Barcelona — once renowned for never having had a sponsor on their shirts — had been looking to replace their Qatar Airways contract which was seen as below market value for a number of seasons.
Rakuten, seeking to boost its global image, is Japan’s biggest e-commerce company with more than 13,000 employees in Japan and turnover of more than two trillion yen (RM78.3 billion) in the first three quarters of the year. AFP