Joan Laporta and the Barcelona Board of Directors, in their search for a new shirt sponsor, have turned down a more than €70 million deal with an undisclosed crypto exchange company, report marca and EFE† The company offered more than Spotify, which Barça will eventually do business with from the 2022/23 season. However, the board of the Catalans would view the crypto sector as “unethical”.
The mistrust of the sector and the lack of a solid economic basis of the proposals were two obstacles and prevented both the Governing Council and the commercial department from being open to negotiations. The Catalan club does have partnerships with Socios.com and Chiliz.net, offering supporters so-called ‘fan tokens’, which is a type of sports cryptocurrency, but Barcelona president Joan Laporta ‘felt safer’ with music streaming service Spotify’s lower offer. .
“Crypto is a speculative, risky, highly volatile and unethical industry,” the board is quoted as saying by marca† The unnamed crypto exchange company was also willing to offer a twenty percent results-based bonus, depending on the performance of the first team. During the search for a new shirt sponsor, Barcelona received several offers from crypto companies, but all of them were unsuccessful.
The deal with Spotify is reportedly worth significantly less than the offer made by the crypto exchange firm to Barcelona. According to marca The deal with Spotify involves between 69 and 74 million euros, but this includes performance bonuses, shirt sponsorship of the first team of the men’s and women’s teams and also the new naming of the Camp Nou.
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