Barcelona unveil new sponsor Rakuten in £200m, four-year mega-deal

Barcelona have signed a huge new sponsorship deal with Japanese firm Rakuten worth £200million in a significant show of commercial strength from the Spanish champions.

The four-year agreement, with an option of a one-year extension, which will see the Rakuten logo feature on Barcelona’s shirts from next season, enters the Catalan club into a tier of shirt-sponsor revenue matched only by Manchester United.
However, it could have been United’s neighbours, Manchester City, who had been part of the mega-deal, if they had agreed to play in red.

According to Spanish paper Mundo Deportivo, Rakuten had wanted to do business with City, offering a huge sponsorship deal if they agreed to the colour change, reminiscent of Cardiff City’s under Vincent Tan.
Tan changed the Bluebird’s shirts red for three seasons, in a move that was deeply unpopular with fans, because he thought it would bring the team luck, before returning to blue.
Japanese company Rakuten wanted to do a similar deal when they proposed a partnership with the Premier League side back in 2011.
However, City refused, leaving the Japanese firm to instead sign the bumper deal with Barca five years later.
Barcelona see Rakuten, who call themselves ‘Japan’s largest internet shopping mall’ as an ideal partner in their bid to expand the club’s brand in Asia.
The partnership is understood to be worth up to £53m per season, with £5m of that figure dependent on bonuses linked to success on the pitch.
The new figures represent almost double what Barca are earning on their current £29m-per-year Qatar Airways sponsorship.
Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu revealed on Wednesday that the early stages of negotiations with Rakuten came about from a meeting organised by defender Gerard Pique.
The former Manchester United star already holds commercial connections in Japan and was pictured visiting Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani last year.
Bartomeu said: ‘The deal began at a dinner hosted by Gerard Pique at Hiroshi Mikitani’s house in San Francisco in 2015.’
In securing a £50m-per-season contract, Barcelona president Bartomeu has satisfied the target he set when speaking to supporters at the club’s AGM in October of last year.
Rakuten’s deal follows a recent trend of only covering the sponsorship of the first-team shirts. A separate deal for Barca’s training kits is still to be negotiated and could be targeted by Qatar Airways – who are expected to stay on as the club’s official airline partner.