FC Barcelona, a prominent Spanish football club, announced on Tuesday it has reached a multi-year partnership agreement with WhiteBIT, the largest European crypto exchange. In the press statement, the club said the crypto partnership intends to boost its commercial strategy and consolidate its international expansion.

Barca Finally Picks Crypto Sponsor Again

The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. However, Barca said that WhiteBIT will become its official cryptocurrency exchange partner for the three coming seasons, lasting till June 30, 2025. Both partners will engage in joint activities to bring together the crypto industry and professional sports.

“We are pleased to announce this new partnership, another example of the Club’s commitment to innovation,” said Juli Guiu, FC Barcelona Vice president of the Marketing area. “This is a partnership that will help us to continue growing and developing our global commercial expansion strategy […].”

Barca Previously Turned Down Crypto Deals

Barca’s announcement today comes months after the Spanish club rejected several lucrative sponsorships offers from crypto companies, including an $80 million deal from an unknown crypto exchange in February.

The club instead settled for a lower offer from Spotify, with a spokesperson saying that cryptocurrency “is a speculative, risky, highly variable, and unethical sector,” Spanish sports news outlet Marca reported.

Regardless of the stance, Barca still had exposure to the crypto sector via its digital currency. Known as FC Barcelona Fan Token (BAR), the crypto was issued in June 2020 in partnership with the Chiliz platform. Within a single day of launch, the token reportedly attracted over $1.3 million in sales.

At the time of writing, the BAR token was trading at $3.33, a 0.98% decrease on the 24-hour price chart.

(By By Ibiam Wayas)