NYtimes escribió:Soccer Report
Barcelona’s New Uniforms Have a Logo and a Message
Jerseys for Carles Puyol, left, and Samuel Eto’o now bear Unicef ’s logo.
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By JACK BELL
Published: September 13, 2006
Barcelona was wearing its newest finery yesterday as it began defense of its European Champions League title against visiting Levski Sofia of Bulgaria. The jerseys had the familiar blue and red vertical stripes, but a new addition was the name splashed across the front, Unicef.
Last week, Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, was at the United Nations, where he signed an agreement to put a sponsor’s name on the front of the team’s jersey for the first time since the club’s founding in 1899.
“If you look at our history, this is a club that has always represented the values of citizenship, sport and democracy in the Catalan capital,” Laporta said in an interview Friday before returning to Spain. “We are a club that appreciates talent and tolerance. Through 107 years we have represented those values, and in that time our shirt has never been sold.”
Barcelona was alone among the top clubs in the world in spurning lucrative offers to sell advertising space on its jersey. Laporta said the club had repeatedly declined offers, including one that would have paid it $22 million a year and another from the Beijing Olympic organizing committee. By comparison, Chelsea of England began a five-year sponsorship deal with Samsung Electronics in 2005 that pays it $18.7 million a season.
Instead, it is Barcelona that will pay Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, nearly $2 million a year for the next five years for the right to use the Unicef logo in all competitions, Laporta said. The first program to benefit will focus on AIDS education for children in Swaziland.
“Our message is that Barcelona is more than a club, and a new global hope for vulnerable children,” he said. “It is a humanitarian message. It represents the identify of our club that we see as a defender of freedom and democratic rights and facing up to others in a time of governments without tolerance.”
Laporta declined to say whether he was drawing a comparison between his club and its main rival, Real Madrid. Barcelona and Catalonia, an autonomous region of Spain, have long had a contentious relationship with the central government. That was especially true in the days of the dictator Francisco Franco, an unabashed Real supporter.
In yesterday’s game, five different players scored as Barcelona defeated Levski Sofia, 5-0. Barcelona is trying to become the first team to win back-to-back European club championships since A.C. Milan in 1989 and 1990. Those Milan teams included Barcelona’s current coach, Frank Rijkaard.
“It is important that we try to present an image of sport in the world that changes the idea that football is only about money, but that it has a heart and a soul,” Laporta said