Football
Dermot Corrigan, Madrid correspondent 8y

Barcelona deny problems sealing kit sponsorship deal

Barcelona vice president Manel Arroyo has denied that a delay in finalising a kit sponsorship deal for next season is a problem for the club.

The European champions famously had no shirt sponsor at all until they partnered with UNICEF in 2006, and since the 2011-12 season their jerseys featured first the brand of the Qatar Foundation and then Qatar Airways.

The current deal ends this June and has yet to be renewed, amid concerns that the Catalan club's relationship with Qatar has suffered from criticism of the Gulf state's internal politics by current club chief Josep Maria Bartomeu during last summer's presidential election at the Camp Nou.

The Blaugrana outfit's financial situation is complicated by the need to find money for new contracts for stars including Neymar, Lionel Messi and Sergio Busquets, while club statutes mandating a strict debt-to-income ratio mean the board have little room for manoeuvre at present.

On a visit to Qatar to take in a MotoGP race, Barca's marketing and communication VP told Catalunya Radio Esports that he was confident a deal with a sponsor would be completed, not necessarily with Qatar, and that he and the club's commercial team were dealing competently with the situation.

"There will be a sponsor next season," Arroyo said. "Qatar is one of the possibilities but we are also working with other people. We are working on it, me and the commercial team. Everything is following the path it should. The only thing I can say is that to do our job well, we have to be discrete and silent regarding the negotiations."

As far back as September 2015, Bartomeu said he expected a deal to be announced shortly, but the lack of public progress since has brought reports that the club has had to indemnify kit suppliers Nike for the delay.

Arroyo denied there were any such problems with Nike, but admitted that the first shirts for the 2016-17 season would go on sale without any sponsor on the front.

"Everything has been spoken about with Nike and they understand the situation," he said. "Barca sell the shirts, not any brands, so we're aware what we're working on and the situation we have on our hands. The decision is taken. When the current shirts are all out of stock, the new shirts will appear in the shops, without a sponsor, for now."

Barca also need to raise funds for their planned €600m redevelopment of the Camp Nou, with naming rights being sold to raise at least a third of that sum. Many had assumed that the close commercial partnership with Qatar would also be useful in this way.

Arroyo did not give details of how negotiations on that front were progressing, but added that the club are expected to now raise more than €300m by selling a 'surname' for the new stadium.

"We were thinking of raising €200m for the 'commercial surname' on the stadium, but [now] we expect to get over €300m for this concept," he said.

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