The Japanese group Rakuten will continue one more season as Barcelona’s main sponsor, until June 2022, after activating the option provided for in the contract signed in 2017, the Barça club reported this Friday.
Rakuten and Barcelona agreed to “execute the option contemplated in the agreement signed in 2017 to extend their alliance for an additional season, once the initially planned 4-year contract has concluded.”
The Japanese online commerce giant “will continue to be the Club’s Main Global Partner and Global Innovation and Entertainment Partner and its logo will continue to appear on the front of the first team shirt in the 2021/2022 season,” Barça added in a statement. .
The initial sponsorship agreement ended on June 30, 2021, after Rakuten took over in 2017 as the main sponsor of the Barça team from the airline Qatar Airways.
The agreement reached four years ago provided for 55 million euros ($65 million) each year, plus 1.5 million euros for winning the league and 5 million in the event of winning the Champions League.
Barcelona does not specify this Friday the figures of this extension of the contract, which, however, contemplates “an optimization of the planned assets with the aim of being able to adapt them to the new reality derived from the covid-19 pandemic.”
The extension of the sponsorship contract provides fresh air for the Barça club, immersed in a difficult financial situation due to the impact of the pandemic.
“The economic situation of the club” is not dramatic, but it is highly worrying, “Carles Tusquets, president of the manager that runs the club, had affirmed last Monday, after the resignation of president Josep Maria Bartomeu.
“We evaluate that to balance the budget we have to make efforts of about 300 million euros (348 million dollars),” he added, specifying that the club is trying to reduce expenses and seek new income.
Among the reduction in expenses, the salary negotiation with the players and the club’s staff stands out. AFP (hn).