Coronavirus: Barcelona to sell Nou Camp naming rights to raise money for Covid-19 fight

Club will break away from tradition and sell sponsorship naming rights to the Nou Camp for the 2020/21 season, but will give all income towards the club’s Foundation to fund projects fighting the outbreak of Covid-19

Barcelona will sell the naming rights to the Nou Camp for the first time in the club’s history next season, and donate the money entirely towards projects battling against coronavirus.

The Nou Camp will carry title sponsorship for the first time in 2020/21 whenever the season gets underway in what is a break away from the Liga club’s tradition, though it has done so for the sole reason of funding research projects and those battling the coronavirus pandemic worldwide for a range of domestic and international schemes.

The 26-time La Liga champions have vowed to give all of the sponsorship money generated towards a combination of the club’s Foundation and a Covid-19-related project driven by the chosen sponsors themselves.

The club has already been actively working to try and ease Spain’s coronavirus crisis, with the nation the second-worst hit in Europe, with facilities being used to import health materials, systems used to link education professionals with children and visits from the club’s male and female teams to sick children in hospital as well as raising awareness about the efforts being utilised to tackle the virus.

In an effort to take that aid to the next level, Barcelona announced the move to give away sponsorship rights for the first time on Monday afternoon.

“In the next few weeks, the Barca Foundation, through the club's Commercial Area, will begin the process of finding a sponsor who wishes to acquire the title rights to the Nou Camp 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,” a club statement read.

The chosen sponsor will be selected by a management committee chaired by Jordi Cardoner, Barcelona’s first club vice-president and the founder of the Barca Foundation, with the scheme’s current director general Oriol Tomas also involved, and an application criteria will be formed by the committee in the coming weeks for potential sponsors to apply.

Cardoner said: “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.

Barcelona will sell the naming rights for the Nou Camp in 2020/21 (Reuters)

“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.”

The committee will also decide how funds from the sponsorship deal are allocated and managed, with the eventual agreement required to be signed off by the club’s Assembly of Members’ Representatives.