Reports have emerged that the Catalan club are discussing a possibility of selling out the naming rights of their iconic stadium in a new sponsorship deal worth more than £250m.
Their home for more than six decades, Barcelona are wondering about renovating the stadium and area around it that would cost Barcelona somewhere around £500mn, half of which can be financed with a sponsorship deal.
Speaking about the club’s finances, Bartomeu told Bloomberg: “Beko was the last sponsor that we renewed our agreement with, the next steps are the naming rights to the stadium.
“Espai Barça is a total renewal of the stadium, but not only the stadium, also part of the city of Barcelona, because we will have a new arena.
“There are two of three companies we are talking to. Our partner will probably bring us half of the investment.
“One of the objectives of the club is to earn money every year, of course, because we have to reinvest that money in players and real estate.”
Sponsorship deals and naming rights are quite common in the game, with huge corporations investing loads of money to finance a team in exchange of naming and branding the club.
Arsenal named their stadium as Emirates following their deal with Airline Giants Emirates, so did Manchester City with Etihad Stadium.
In the German Bundesliga too, Bayern Munich have their stadium named after finance giant Allianz while Vfl Wolfsburg are associated with the Volkswagen Arena.
But Barcelona’s home will just not feel the same if it is called anything other than Camp Nou!
