Barcelona unveiled their new shirt bearing the Qatar Foundation logo. Barcelona President Sandro Rosell and coach Pep Guardiola championed Qatar's successful World Cup bid and were rewarded with the E170m 5-year deal just 8 days after the World Cup hosts for 2022 were announced. Barcelona had been struggling to comply with the FFP criteria and desperately needed the income from this huge deal. The Spanish FIFA delegation were also keen to arrange a reciprocal voting arrangement with Qatar that would have seen Spain hosts for the 2018 competition.
The Qatar Foundation is a charity run by the Qatar ruling family and announces that it "aims to support Qatar on its journey from a carbon economy to a knowledge economy by unlocking human potential". However, not everyone was happy at this piece of business - the former Barcelona President Joan Laporta did not attend the vote on shirt deal, saying that it made the Spanish champions look like Qatar's national team. Prior to the Quatar deal, the club had previously given the Unicef logo pride of place on the centre of their shirts.
