FC Barcelona Offer Camp Nou Naming Rights
FC Barcelona will cede rights to the Barça Foundation who will search for a stadium sponsor for next season.
FC Barcelona has taken an exceptional decision to cede the title rights to Camp Nou for the season 2020-2021 to the Barça Foundation to raise money to invest in research projects being carried out in Catalonia and the rest of the world involved in the fight against the effects of COVID-19.
Conscious that Barça has a commitment to society that forms part of its identity as ‘more than a club’, the Board of Directors, the governing body chosen democratically by the members and presided over by Josep Maria Bartomeu, have approved the measure to help raise vital funds in the fight against coronavirus.
FC Barcelona and the Barça Foundation, of which the director responsible is the club’s first vice president Jordi Cardoner Casaus, consider it a necessity that at this time of humanitarian crisis with the institution using all its resources to fight against the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences.
The Barça Foundation, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, helps more than 1.6 million children to improve their lives via education, programmes for violence prevention and social inclusion. For these children, who have become indirect victims of this pandemia, confined to home for more than a month, to have a future it is vital to invest in research projects to find treatment to counter Covid-19 and that help alleviate economic and social effects.
In the next few weeks, the Barça Foundation, through the club’s commercial area, will begin the process of finding a sponsor who wishes to acquire the title rights to Camp Nou for a season with the proceeds going to finance research projects and other projects involved in the battle against the effects of Covid-19, both at a local and international level.
The rights for a name to be put to Camp Nou are a commercial option that has never been exploited before by the club. This ceding of the rights for a season is compatible with the future commercial use of the title rights for Camp Nou to finance the Espai Barça project, as approved by the members in a referendum celebrated in 2014.
Now, the Foundation will put out on to the market the title rights and it will use the money a sponsor brings in the service of a vital cause and one that benefits everyone. The income generated will create a fund that will be divided in the following way: a part will be destined for a project on Covid-19 driven by the sponsors themselves and the rest will be shared out amongst other projects that are being developed in parallel.
These projects will be selected by a management committee formed by first vice president of the club and vice president of the Foundation, Jordi Cardoner Casaus, the vice president responsible for the club’s commercial area and member of the Foundation board, Oriol Tomàs, the director general of the Barça Foundation, Mària Vallès, the president of the College of Barcelona Doctors, Jaume Padró and the head of the club’s medical services, Ramon Canal, in agreement with established selection criteria. This committee will also manage the financing of the projects via the fund that will be created with the income from sponsorship.
The sponsorship agreement that is reached will have to be ratified by the Assembly of Members’ Representatives at the club.
Jordi Cardoner, the first vice president of FC Barcelona and of the Barça Foundation, said of the decision: “We are very happy to be able to drive forward this initiative that offers something as emblematic as the name of our stadium, so that institutions, organisations, businesses who wise may associate themselves with it and as such, contribute to the fight against Covid-19, given that their investment will used to finance research projects on the illness and projects that are working to eradicate or lessen its effects.
“Right now, we can quantify the effects of this health crisis but what we do know is that it will require all our resources to defeat it and for that reason it is so important that we all together make a solid, firm commitment.
“We are facing a global crisis without precedent in our modern history and we have to assume with courage and calm the responsibility that we have. For that reason, from both the club and the Foundation, we consider it vital at this time of humanitarian crisis to use all the resources available at the organisation to fight against the coronavirus pandemic and its consequences. It forms part of our way of doing things and of being as an institution.
“The cause, fighting against the coronavirus, is a global one. Being the top sporting entity on a world scale implies that we take on this challenge as fully as we can and if we can serve as inspiration for other organisations involved in the battle, perhaps we can create a wave of hope for millions of people around the world who are suffering due to this pandemic.”
Image: PA Images
