When we think of FC Barcelona, we immediately think of this iconic Blaugrana jersey that Barça players have worn for over 100 years. Since 1998 and the arrival of Nike as main equipment supplier, a slew of international stars (Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Xavi, Andres Iniesta, Eto’o, Luis Suarez, Gerard Piqué, Sergi Busquets, Neymar and of course Lionel Messi) wore the colors of the Catalan club adorned with the famous Swoosh. It is therefore not surprising to see Barça and the American equipment manufacturer agree in June 2018 on the contours of an XXL 10-year deal at 1.5 billion euros with a minimum guaranteed €150 million with a variable on sales . For this amount, you will have understood, it is a broader contract than that of a simple equipment supplier intended to supply a club. The Catalan club and Nike have reached an agreement which allows Nike to manage all of the official FC Barcelona stores. As a reminder, if Neymar left for PSG in 2017, Messi in 2018 is still at his prime… and the standard bearer of Barça.
Fry on the line between Barça and Nike
5 and a half years later, the deal is still the same and costs Nike a fortune. The latter, who saw no objection to paying €150 million per year for a club in which the best player in the world played, takes a very dim view of the permanent sporting crisis experienced by Barça for several seasons. Because the Spanish club’s sluggish performances and the proposed squad which no longer has much to do with what Barça was, have an immediate impact at the marketing level and therefore at the level of jersey sales in stores. official club reports, even more so since the departure of its legend Lionel Messi in 2021. A situation that the five-time winner of the Champions League obviously contests, who for his part believes that he should earn more and who justifies the sales of products marketing in the image of the FCB by a glaring lack of effort from Nike on the collections offered, not sufficiently desirable for the general public. An argument which obviously does not hold for the brand with the swoosh which noted at the same time that PSG had passed Barça in the hierarchy of clubs selling the most jerseys thanks in particular to the Jordan collections which remain a very big success at the international.
So to say that there is water in the gas is an understatement and we could even say that relationships are tenser than the elastic of a tracksuit. In a difficult economic context and at the very moment when the American brand has reduced its marketing investment at player level, but also and above all at club level by choosing only one top club per major championship, it is difficult to see how Nike could meet Barcelona’s crazy demands. Worse, according to our information, the point of no return was even reached very recently when Barça missed two order slots with Nike which resulted in a total absence of product orders for next season. And when we know the very long manufacturing time that is plaguing today in Asia, this clearly raises questions, especially since Barça is the only big Nike club in this situation currently.
Barça is trying to find an alternative to Nike…
Barça, whose strategy disconcerts more than one Nike manager, set out to find a new equipment supplier who would be able to buy the remaining 5 years of the contract linking Nike to Barça. Nike’s historic rival, adidas, is not interested especially since they already have Real Madrid in Spain and they do not want to have the two biggest clubs in La Liga. But two equipment manufacturers are capable of achieving such madness, namely Puma and New Balance. The American brand, which had Liverpool stolen by Nike in 2020, is still looking for a top club to reinvest spectacularly in football while Puma, which has already taken Portugal from Nike from next summer, wants to continue its raid on the big clubs. The German equipment manufacturer is the brand that is on the rise in football and the results and their strategy can only prove them right, whether at the level of OM, Manchester City or even Neymar.
If on paper this deal could mark a turning point in the very competitive equipment manufacturer market, it looks complicated, if not almost impossible. First problem and it is significant, the remaining duration of the contract signed in 2018. It would therefore be necessary to give enormous compensation of several hundred million euros to Nike while increasing the initial contract of €150 million signed at the time as FC Barcelona wishes. Then, we can happily wonder about the capacity that this new equipment manufacturer would have to build a whole new collection for July 2024, a deadline that is almost impossible to meet, what’s more for a large European club which has a very vast. In the end, the greatest probability in the event of a proven and consummate divorce between the two parties, would be to move towards a new equipment manufacturer in 2025-26… But one question remains unanswered. Can we really envisage that there will be no Barça products on sale in the official stores of the Catalan club next summer? Doubt is allowed.
