Quick take:
- Barcelona sold 29.5% of Barca Vision to LIBERO Football Finance AG and NIPA Capital B.V. for €120 million ($131.9m).
- The Spanish football giant needed money to register new players.
- Barcelona said it will also use the funds to strengthen the team during this transfer window.
FC Barcelona has received a major boost ahead of the commencement of the new season. The Spanish football giant sold 29.5% of Barca Vision to LIBERO Football Finance AG and NIPA Capital B.V. for €120 million ($131.9m).
Barca Vision is a subsidiary of Football Club de Barcelona responsible for driving the Catalan club’s digital strategy through Web3 and blockchain including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and the metaverse. According to ESPN, the club will now be able to register new players, as well as, strengthen the team by revisiting the transfer market.
Barcelona has been one of the earliest adopters of web3 technology and its associated verticals in the footballing world.
The club first made its intentions clear in March 2022 when it announced it was launching its own cryptocurrency and NFTs. At the time, Barca was sinking into debt, worth the tune of about $1.4 billion.
Although the situation has since eased through the partial sale of its media rights, the club’s continued spending on players has put more stress on the finances, meaning last year’s La Liga winners cannot register new players for the upcoming season.
Last summer, Barcelona sold a 49% stake in Barca Vision to Socios.com (24.5%) and Orpheus Media (24.5%) in exchange for another €200 million, which helped the club to sign and register more players.
With this latest announcement, Barca will own barely 20% of its audiovisual studio. Whether that’s a smart decision remains to be seen especially given the current state of the crypto market.
The industry has experienced a significant decline in activity with NFT transaction volumes falling, and market capitalisations and floor prices of top NFT collections plummeting. Raising €120 million from the sale of a 29.5% stake, which works out to about €100 for a 24.5% stake is a major coup by the Catalonia-based football giant.
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