Barca seal record shirt deal with Qatar Foundation

Barcelona have agreed a record shirt sponsorship deal with the Qatar Foundation worth 30 million euros ($40 million) a season through to the end of the 2015-16 campaign, the La Liga champions said today.

Barcelona have agreed a record shirt sponsorship deal with the Qatar Foundation worth 30 million euros ($40 million) a season through to the end of the 2015-16 campaign, the La Liga champions said on Friday.

The deal is the biggest for any soccer club, Barca said on their website (www.fcbarcelona.cat), and will net the Catalan side about 165 million euros in total, including 15 million euros for the remainder of the current season.

The Qatar Foundation, founded by Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in 1995, has projects focusing on education, scientific research and community development. It is also engaged in several corporate joint ventures.

Last week the tiny Gulf state was chosen by soccer's governing body FIFA to host the World Cup in 2022 when it will become the first Arab country to stage the finals.

Barca are one of the few clubs in world soccer not to have a corporate logo on their first-team shirts, instead displaying the name of the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, for which they pay the organisation 1.5 million euros a year.

"With this accord, Barca becomes the undisputed brand leader in world football, far ahead of international rivals," Javier Faus, a club vice president, told a news conference.

A study by consulting firm Sport+Markt published in October showed new deals for English Premier League clubs Manchester United and Liverpool, with insurance brokerage AON and bank Standard Chartered respectively, were the two most valuable contracts in 2010/11 at 23.6 million euros each.

Real Madrid's 23-million-euro deal with Internet bookmaker bwin was the next biggest.