Newly crowned Spanish champions FC Barcelona had been considering plans to us commercial sponsorship displaying a logo for their famous Barca shirts since a while but have decided now instead to use the club's name and resources to finance humanitarian projects.
Barca president Joan Laporta said on Tuesday that the club's board had agreed to donate 0.7 percent of annual income starting from the 2006/07 season to the United Nations as a contribution to the organisation's Millennium Development Goals campaign: "This is the biggest sporting initiative to raise awareness of poverty the world has seen. Barcelona will become the first sporting institution to establish an alliance of this order with an institution like the UN in order to fight against poverty and injustice in the world. The growth in the club's income has allowed us to take a decision of this type".


Barca's famous "Blaugrana" shirts have never been sponsored by a commercial brand in the club´s history. Barcelona have decided to stick with tradition and not have a sponsor´s logo on their team jerseys. Several world record offers had been tabled this year but the Club resisted so far and decided now that the Clubs name could be used instead to promote humanitarian causes. Barcelona´s president Laporta confirmed:

"We are planning on using the shirts to carry a humanitarian message as part of our plans to become more than a club in the rest of the world.


FC Barcelona Blog reported already that the club were involved in several negotiations such as the Chinese authorities (Bejing 2008 Olympic Games) and online betting firm BetandWin over shirt sponsorship earlier this season but neither deal had been signed by the Club´s board. FC Barcelona Blog readers had also be informed that Barca might consider to use the Club´s name and Shirts for humanitary projects rather than a commercial sponsorship deal.