Japanese group Rakuten has agreed to continue as Barcelona's lead sponsor for one more season, the club announced Friday.
The e-commerce giant has chosen to activate the extension clause in their current contract, signed in 2017, which will take the deal to June 2022.
Rakuten and Barca agreed to "execute the option provided in the 2017 agreement to extend their partnership for an additional season, once the contract's initial four years had been completed."
A Barcelona spokesperson said Rakuten "will continue to be the club's main global partner and global innovation and entertainment partner and that their logo will remain on the front of the first team shirt for the 2021/2022 season."
The sponsorship extension comes at a testing financial time for Barca, with even the world's richest club feeling the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Lionel Messi is as big as his team Barcelona and deserves to have the club’s Camp Nou stadium named after him, former...
Posted by Sports Tribune on Friday, 6 November 2020
The club gave no financial details of the deal but said it provided for "an optimization of planned assets to be able to adapt to the new post-pandemic reality".
Barca's initial agreement with Rakuten was for 55m euros ($65m) a year.
Carles Tusquets, president of the managing committee of FCB, shared the details with reporters Monday.
Tusquets' statement came in the wake of former president Josep Maria Bartomeu's resignation.
Bartomeu had been engaged in a stand-off with Lionel Messi which ended with Messi remaining at the club but making his displeasure clear.
