Laporta revealed the club’s intention to terminate its contract with Nike due to perceived breaches.
After clearly expressing his distance from Nike in an interview with Mundo Deportivo, where he left a revealing message “What’s easier, sticking with Nike? Sometimes what’s easy isn’t the best. And we want the best for Barça,” Laporta told this newspaper, this Saturday the Blaugrana president took it a step further.
Coinciding with the premiere of Barça Studios’ video podcast series, Joan Laporta revealed that Barcelona communicated its intention to terminate the contract with Nike. “We told Nike that, based on breaches that were blatant to us, we were terminating the contract. They had 45 days to compensate us, they didn’t, and we informed them that the contract was terminated, to which they responded with interim measures that we have replied to and now we are seeing the solution to these measures,” confessed the top Blaugrana official. Additionally, Laporta confirmed that the North American firm has made moves to offer a better proposal, but it is still insufficient for the club’s interests.
“They have tried to improve the contract, but they have made efforts that are not enough because we know that the market pays more,” Laporta commented on the new offer from the American giant. While waiting to finalize what will finally be the proposal to design Barça’s jersey from July 1st onwards, despite the contract with Nike expiring in 2026, Joan Laporta made it clear that the club continues to negotiate with all options on the table, with the aim of securing the best sponsorship contract in the world for Barça.
“In this regard, we are civilly, with all the options we have, working. We are convinced that we will have the best contract in the world. We are open to everything, but we cannot have a contract that is much inferior to what the market pays. It is our responsibility as executive club directors to secure the best contract,” detailed Laporta, who emphasized the phrase he already explained to this newspaper.
“The easy thing would be to continue with Nike with a contract below market value, but sometimes what’s easy isn’t the best for the club,” he explained. Finally, despite any option other than Nike seemingly going against Barça’s interests in terms of being able to manufacture next season’s jersey, the Barça president did not want to set any deadline for making the decision.
“The deadline is set by the negotiations we have,” he concluded.
