International Football, Barcelona: The highly indebted top Spanish football club FC Barcelona will work with Spotify as the main sponsor from the summer. A contract has been signed with the music streaming market leader for a “strategic partnership”, said the club of national goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen on Tuesday evening. As part of this collaboration, the Catalans’ stadium in Barcelona will be named Spotify Camp Nou. Barça’s men’s and women’s teams will also feature the Swedish company’s branding from next season and initially until the summer of 2026.
The agreement, approved and signed by the club’s board of directors, has yet to be ratified at an extraordinary general meeting scheduled for April 3, it said. Club president Joan Laporta stressed: This agreement “enables us to combine entertainment and football while reaching a larger number of people around the world”.
The agreement comes at the right time. The financially and sportingly stricken club has debts of 1.35 billion euros. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, the Catalan specialist newspaper “Mundo Deportivo” and other media report that the club will receive 65 to 70 million euros for each of the next four seasons.
2nd Bundesliga, Schalke 04: After being relegated to the 2nd Bundesliga, FC Schalke 04 has at least stabilized somewhat financially thanks to a tough austerity plan. In the second half of 2021, the company even made a profit of 3.6 million euros, according to the annual report published on Tuesday. In 2021 as a whole, however, the Royal Blues had to accept a loss of 17.8 million euros. However, the deficit was significantly lower than in 2020, when Schalke reported a minus of 52.6 million euros. Sales fell by 4.6 percent to 167.1 million euros in 2021.
It is also positive for the Ruhpott Club that it was able to reduce its high mountain of debt despite being in the second division: Liabilities fell by 33.5 million to 183.5 million euros. “We’re on the right track,” said Schalke’s CFO Christina Rühl-Hamers. The measures taken were effective and the company was still able to act economically.
After being relegated to the Bundesliga last spring, television revenue and sponsorship revenue fell significantly, and ticket revenue was also low due to corona measures. The club sold players such as Suat Serdar (to Hertha BSC) and Matthew Hoppe (to RCD Mallorca) last summer. According to the annual report, all transfers by the club brought a total of 38.9 million euros into the coffers last year. In 2020 it was only 13.4 million.
S04 also made additional income in another area, the surrender of the starting place in an e-sports league – the European League of Legends League LEC – brought in 26.5 million euros.
The figures also show that the Royal Blues have significantly reduced wages and salaries. The professional squad, which last cost 80 million euros per season in the first division, has been reduced to 20 million euros per season. “In my view, the key to overcoming the financial challenges lay in the successful restructuring of the squad,” said Rühl-Hamers. However, the restructuring of the squad is not yet complete – several transfer periods are needed for this. Schalke are currently four points behind a promotion place in the 2nd Bundesliga – direct promotion would also be very important for the club financially. However, the club management emphasizes that another year in the second division would be economically feasible. If promotion does not work out this spring, the club predicts a low double-digit million euro loss for the full year 2022.
Series A, Verona: The Italian first division football team Hellas Verona will have to do without some of their fans in one of their next home games after racist chants and a scandalous poster campaign surrounding the match against SSC Napoli. The club announced this on its website on Tuesday. The reason for the penalty in Serie A is an action on Sunday night.
Verona supporters had put up a banner near their home stadium that showed Napoli’s GPS coordinates alongside the Russian and Ukrainian flags. It was interpreted as a call to bomb Naples. The banner was signed by the “Curva Sud”, one of Verona’s ultra groups. These fans will now not be allowed into the stadium in the April 3 game against Genoa.
In addition, the racist chants during the encounter were aimed at Naples’ black professionals Kalidou Koulibaly and Victor Osimhen. Osimhen had scored both goals in Napoli’s 2-1 win. Verona had been noticed several times in the past by racist incidents and has now been sanctioned again.