Nike has been the official shirt sponsor for Barca since 1998, but especially in recent years there have been reports of disagreements between the parties. Now American New Balance is lurking, which should be interested in taking over the agreement.
It’s been just over seven years since Barca and Nike signed the last contract, which was supposed to last a full 12 years, but Barca’s increasing desire to improve the contract terms has created owls in the swamp, and several competitors are reportedly trying to exploit it for a Catalan charm offensive.
FC Barcelona and American Nike have worked together since 1998, which means that if the parties let the latest contract expire, which was signed in 2016, then they can celebrate the 30th anniversary in 2028. The newspaper Sport says that the contract brings Barca 155 million euros per season, but that precisely that amount is the reason why the collaboration is not going quite as planned.
Barca do not believe that the amount corresponds to today’s world view, where the covid pandemic, global inflation and the war in Ukraine have all affected the world economy to such an extent that the contract terms should also be updated in favor of the Catalans. Nike is far from agreeing to that, and the two parties have been in their respective corners for a long time.
The newspaper Sport therefore further explains that the new brand in the world of football, New Balance, together with Puma, among others, is therefore trying to take the temperature of Joan Laporta and the rest of the Barca management in relation to canceling the collaboration with Nike. Although New Balance has existed since 1906, the American brand is still new in the world of football, and today they represent, among others, FC Porto and Lille, and most recently the clothing brand entered into an official collaboration with the new Real Madrid star Endrick.
The rumors claim to know that it is not only the financial aspect of the collaboration with Nike that causes unrest, because everything from the treatment of the players to the quality of the clothes, Barca should have complained about, while Nike, on the other hand, has a number of counterarguments that make the time to a new jersey sponsor maybe before 2028, when the current contract is due to expire.
