Well-Struck by Barça

In the world of club sports, advertising is everywhere. Though the US has thus far resisted the urge to plaster corporate logo all over its players, Europe has long since capitulated to this lucrative source of financing. Ice hockey teams look like a unicorn ate too many jelly beans and threw up rainbows all over the ice—potheads would love it if the guys just wouldn’t move so quickly. Football[1] players look marginally better, their team owners usually restraining themselves to a single logo of a telecomms company. One extremely popular team, Barcelona, has thus far resisted the urge to adorn.

Until now.

Barça take the moral high road reveals that Barcelona has indeed agreed to emblazon their jerseys with the logo of an international company: Unicef.

“It will not be the brand name of a corporation. It will not be a commercial to promote some kind of business. It will be the logo of ‘Unicef’. Through Unicef, we, the people of FC Barcelona, the people of ‘Barça’, are very proud to donate our shirt to the children of the world who are our present, but especially are our future.”

Mock if you want, but with the donation of “just over £1m to its humanitarian projects each year”, Barça is well ahead of any of its rivals in showing that even mega-rich football clubs can be something other than rapacious sharks in the corporate sea.

Barça Unicef Jersey