Barcelona

When FC Barcelona signed an agreement with UNICEF in September 2006, it wasn't just another sponsorship deal. It was a moment when football, at least for a while, turned its back on the logic of profit and showed that a jersey could be something more than advertising space.

Until that moment, Barcelona had spent 107 years without a single logo on the front of its jersey. While other major European clubs competed for million-dollar deals with airlines, banks, and car manufacturers, Blaugrana remained true to its philosophy "Més que un club" (More than a club).

Everything changed on September 7, 2006, at the United Nations headquarters in New York. There, club representatives and UNICEF signed a historic agreement that would forever change the look of Barcelona's jersey. But instead of UNICEF paying Barcelona, the deal was reversed: the club pledged to donate €1.5 million annually to support children affected by HIV and AIDS, and in return earned the right to display UNICEF's logo on its jerseys.

The first five years of UNICEF's partnership with Barcelona represent something that today sounds almost impossible in modern football: the front of the jersey was completely free of commercial advertising. Instead of the Emirates Airlines, Qatar Airways, or Rakuten logo, there stood the blue UNICEF logo with a globe, a symbol saying that football could serve something greater than profit.

That generation was worn by players like Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernández, and Andrés Iniesta. It was Messi, who became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2010, who became the face of this partnership, the boy from Rosario who became a global icon while simultaneously promoting children's rights around the world.

That era ended in 2011, when Barcelona signed its first real commercial sponsorship deal, with the Qatar Foundation. UNICEF didn't disappear, but moved from the front of the jersey to the back, below the players' numbers and names.

After 16 years of partnership, in 2022 Barcelona announced that UNICEF would be replaced by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. The new four-year agreement stipulates that the UNHCR logo will appear on the back of the jerseys of the men's and women's first teams and youth squads.

The decision was made in the context of the global refugee crisis and Barcelona's own financial situation, but it maintained the same philosophy: the club still doesn't sell space on its jersey, but uses it to promote humanitarian causes.