Barcelona members vote to extend Qatar agreement
Members voted to extend the club’s controversial association with Qatar Airways at the club’s AGM on Saturday but president Josep Maria Bartomeu says that the club is also looking at long-term alternatives.
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Barcelona prolong Qatar sponsorship agreement
Barcelona members have voted to extend the club’s sponsorship contract and association with Qatar Airways after a heated debate at the club’s AGM on Saturday morning. The notion was passed with 483 votes in favour, 251 against and 60 abstentions.
The previous agreement between the two parties expired at the end of June but the lack of a new long-term deal with the airline and of any real alternatives saw the board extend the deal for an annual fee of €33.5 million, well short of the €60-70 million that was promised at last year’s meeting.
The short-term deal falls well short of its expected value
Before the 2015 elections, in which the incumbent Josep Maria Bartomeu beat out former president and outspoken critic of the club’s association with Qatar Joan Laporta, former Vice-President Javier Faus said that an agreement was in place for a new deal worth €60 million a season with bonuses due for resigning and for winning trophies.
President Bartomeu urged members to vote in favour of the extension and assured doubters that the club was assessing various other long-term options.
“The negotiations with Qatar are not finished,” said Manel Arroyo, the club’s VP of Marketing. “The one-year extension has given us time to negotiate free of financial problems.”
“In a few months we’ll call you all together again to approve a new sponsorship deal,” he added.
Qatar remains unpopular with many fans
Barcelona’s association with Qatar has not been popular among many of the club’s fans, in particular given that it replaced Unicef as the club’s main sponsor. The majority of those who took the microphone during the meeting voiced their opposition, questioning why the club couldn’t have found a more ethical partner that would have fit better with the club’s traditional values and drawing attention to Qatar’s questionable human rights record and the country’s reported connection with Islamic terrorism.
Comments such as “Now we wear Unicef on our arses” and “How can you defend the Catalans’ freedom of expression with Qatar on the front of the shirt?” were commonplace but the board moved to address these concerns.
“The club has spoken with many companies, including a number that were suggested by candidates at the last elections,” said Arroyo. “But we just saw that they wanted to take advantage of the club and that there wasn’t anything behind it.”
“We abide by international law,” he added. “Peoples’ feelings are something else, but at no point have any of our other 42 business partners had an issue with our relationship with Qatar.”