FC Barcelona celebrates the Chinese New Year

Barça players helped in the making of the video that the Club has produced to held the Chinese New Year, which occurs next Friday, January 31.

Neymar, Piqué, Pedro and Sergi Roberto all feature the video and speak to the fans in Mandarin Chinese.

The tradition in China is to associate an animal with each year and for 2014, this is the Year of the Horse.

During the 30 seconds video, Neymar and Gerard Piqué wish the fans “a happy Chinese New Year”, whilst Sergi Roberto hopes they have “good luck” and Pedro asks them to “keep supporting our team”. All four also show their names written in Mandarin Chinese script.

It’s the third year that FC Barcelona has taken part in celebrating the Chinese New Year through its players, a symbol of its special interest in China, a country with millions of Barça fans, which has led to numerous events.

The most recent was the ‘Barcelona Action’ competition which Barça organises with the Catalunya Turisme organisation and which involves a week of travelling through Catalonia, culminating on a game at the Camp Nou.

The FC Barcelona website in Chinese, www.fcbarcelona.cn, receives the second highest number of visitors at the Club, with 500.000 unique users a week, only just behind the English language version.

The Chinese fans can also enjoy a number of contents related to Barça and the New Year, such as special news items, photo galleries, videos and digital assets such as a commemorative screen shots. Read more about FC Barcelona kids soccer camps in Toronto.

The new Camp Nou’s project wil cost 600 million euros

The Project for the new Camp Nou will cost 600 million euros, 420 of which will be for the new stadium, 90 for the new Palau and the other 90 for the parking spaces, the Espai Barça and the new Mini Estadi amongst other items. 

Javier Faus explained that the project will be financed over eight years (2016-2024), primarily from the Club’s own resources. 

“We will not mortgage a whole generation of Barça fans to pay for this project. 

We have decided against any big contributions from members or from organisations outside of the Club. 

This implies that the Club can continue to manage itself in a sustainable way”.

Javier Faus also stressed that as Sandro Rosell has made clear, the project shouldn’t affect any sporting part of the Club: “This is a new Camp Nou, which is sustainable and won’t put our sporting excellence at risk”.

There are four possible sources for financing the project. Faus announced that the Club had decided against giving a sponsor the chance to give a name to the stadium, but explained there was an option for a company to have title rights to the stadium for 20 or 25 years which could bring in 150 million Euros. 

Another 50 million could be gained from letting out spaces to hotels and shops.

The rest of the finance will come from the Club’s own resources. “We have to continue to reduce the debt and continue to generate the 30 million a year we have been doing. 

The new project will also generate an additional  30 million Euros”, primarily through hospitality, ticketing and publicity.