After the tragic exit of Barcelona( out of the Champions League), Barcelona are now looking into the future, President Joan Laporta recently said that Barca are targeting the markets of Asia and the United States of America. "To be successful you have to manage a club like a multinational, for that reason we have to organise and manage our club like a multinational with offices in lots of countries," said Laporta to an audience recently at the London school of Economics as reported by Reuters.
Right now Barcelona gets 200 million Euros in income and the Catalans can afford to pick and choose their sponsors. The Catalans don't believe in shirt sponsorhip like most of the clubs around the world, but even this might change. Barca are the seventh largest club in the world and even though they are not as rich as Manchester United, the Catalans have still managed to survive without any shirt sponsorship.
Clubs in this age need to take the route Manchester United have taken, United cashed on their golden era and the marketing machine rolled on at the same time as their success, full advantage was taken. Liverpool who dominated in the late seventies and eighties was successful in an era that was not ready for the merchandising mania of football.
Success is still important to the club and in a way the job of a marketer (at a football club) is even harder as they can only ride on the success of their club. United can probably go 4 years without winning a trophy and people will still flock to see them simply because of what Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson did, the merchandising machine can still rock on, but clubs need to watch out.
Cashing on just shirt sales and not doing anything in-terms of football development in the respective countries is a road not recommended, in a way this is the beauty of a club compared to a conventional corporate company, they have various tools at their disposal; posters, player apperances, coaching clinics, apparel sales, schools, etc.
Development of soccer schools should be an important component of the club, it should be established in various countries, although United have done this I feel that it could have been done earlier.
it is sad that clubs like Nottingham Forest who won the Champions League (then known as the European cup) is not known by some of the younger generation and Forest have not come back into the forefront, some clubs languish so long in the lower basement that past glories almost becomes a myth.
Even Juventus are jumping on the bandwagon of expansion into Asia, Barca menwhile still have good ambassadors to the game; Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto'o, Henrik Larsson, Rafael Marquez and a few others in their stable who can produce the goods in more ways than one, so Barca can still write off this season as the club is so rich with tradition, could Barca beat the Red Devils in the merchandising war? Well Ronaldinho picked Barcelona over Manchester United because he loved what he saw in Barcelona compared to Manchester (Oucch!).
Right now Barcelona gets 200 million Euros in income and the Catalans can afford to pick and choose their sponsors. The Catalans don't believe in shirt sponsorhip like most of the clubs around the world, but even this might change. Barca are the seventh largest club in the world and even though they are not as rich as Manchester United, the Catalans have still managed to survive without any shirt sponsorship.
Clubs in this age need to take the route Manchester United have taken, United cashed on their golden era and the marketing machine rolled on at the same time as their success, full advantage was taken. Liverpool who dominated in the late seventies and eighties was successful in an era that was not ready for the merchandising mania of football.
Success is still important to the club and in a way the job of a marketer (at a football club) is even harder as they can only ride on the success of their club. United can probably go 4 years without winning a trophy and people will still flock to see them simply because of what Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson did, the merchandising machine can still rock on, but clubs need to watch out.
Cashing on just shirt sales and not doing anything in-terms of football development in the respective countries is a road not recommended, in a way this is the beauty of a club compared to a conventional corporate company, they have various tools at their disposal; posters, player apperances, coaching clinics, apparel sales, schools, etc.
Development of soccer schools should be an important component of the club, it should be established in various countries, although United have done this I feel that it could have been done earlier.
it is sad that clubs like Nottingham Forest who won the Champions League (then known as the European cup) is not known by some of the younger generation and Forest have not come back into the forefront, some clubs languish so long in the lower basement that past glories almost becomes a myth.
Even Juventus are jumping on the bandwagon of expansion into Asia, Barca menwhile still have good ambassadors to the game; Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto'o, Henrik Larsson, Rafael Marquez and a few others in their stable who can produce the goods in more ways than one, so Barca can still write off this season as the club is so rich with tradition, could Barca beat the Red Devils in the merchandising war? Well Ronaldinho picked Barcelona over Manchester United because he loved what he saw in Barcelona compared to Manchester (Oucch!).
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