Barcelona will have a shirt sponsor after all in 2016-17. The Catalan club announced an extension to their current agreement with Qatar Airways on Tuesday. However, the new deal is a lot less than they had hoped for and it could affect their summer transfer plans.
"FC Barcelona and Qatar Airways has extended its agreement as main sponsor for another season," a statement said. "Until June 30, 2017, under the same conditions as the current contract."
That means Barca will receive €35 million, exactly half the amount offered by Qatar Airways to renew the contract last year. Back then, president Josep Maria Bartomeu thought he could secure an even more lucrative deal after the Blaugrana won the treble and negotiations were frozen.
Bartomeu and the Barca board also considered other options, conscious that many fans were unhappy with how the Qatar brand affects the club's image. In the end, however, there is no alternative, there is no change: Qatar Airways will be back on the shirt next season and, to make matters worse, Barca will receive €35m when they had previously decided that €70m was not enough.
Marquinhos flattered by Barcelona interest
Barca began the summer with a transfer budget of just €60m, of which more than €40m has already been spent on Samuel Umtiti (€25m), Lucas Digne (€16.5m) and Denis Duarez (€3.25m in a buy-back deal).
The coffers were expected to be boosted by the new sponsorship deal, but some of the €35m will also need to be used to fund the new contract for Neymar and in the meantime, Barca have also been ordered by a judge to pay back the €47m they received from the sale of a piece of land at Can Rigalt in 2005.
So once again, Barca are left scraping the bottom of the barrel to pay their wages and also to sign new players, which could force the club to look at cut-price options as they seek to bring in another forward this summer and they have even considered bringing back Cristian Tello for free if targets such as Luciano Vietto, Kevin Gameiro and Angel Correa prove too expensive.
It is another disappointing chapter for a club with the second-highest income in world football (after only Real Madrid) and there is the real possibility that none of the club's summer signings will be part of the first-choice line-up at Camp Nou next season - even though Umtiti and Digne are both very good players.
It is difficult, of course, to find footballers better than those already at the club, but the extra €35m would have been extremely useful and the club's inability to improve on the deal from last year despite the treble win is another failure by Bartomeu and his board.
And that is a shame because Barca could still do with signing a right-back to replace Dani Alves, plus another quality forward. Instead, they will be more concerned with balancing the books for another year.
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- Goal