FC Barcelona has come under fire for signing a three-year sponsorship deal with a Samoa-based cryptocurrency company promoted by controversial influencer Andrew Tate.
The company Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP), followed only three online accounts, FC Barcelona, Bitcoin and Andrew Tate, when the deal was completed announced. The company does not disclose leadership or ownership while claiming $100 million in funding.
The move has intensified scrutiny over Barcelona’s search for revenue as the club struggles with heavy debt and a costly stadium redevelopment, raising concerns that it is taking commercial and reputational risks through an opaque crypto company.
“It seems like a bad joke, but unfortunately it is real,” former Barcelona chairman Xavier Vilajoana said of X, calling on the club to “explain the due diligence process that was carried out before approving this agreement.”
It sounds like a bad joke, but unfortunately it’s true.
FC Barcelona has announced a sponsorship deal with ZKP, a little-known blockchain company registered in Samoa, a jurisdiction that the EU has placed on the list of tax havens. When the deal was announced…
— Xavier Vilajoana (@XaviVilajoana) November 18, 2025
Andrew Tate Links
Vilajoana demanded that Barcelona ‘clarify whether ZKP has any direct or indirect connection with Andrew Tate’, stating that the influencer has done so. “was accused of human trafficking, rape and membership of a criminal organization.”
He added that since announcing the deal, Tate has posted a video promoting ZKP, which has caused even more public concern.
He insisted Barcelona must “act with immediate transparency” and explain what due diligence it did before signing the deal.
Although ZKP’s website claims the company is committed to transparency, the company provides few details about who is behind it.
“Everyone asks, ‘Who’s behind this?’ As if knowing the names would make the code stronger,” it says on its website. “That won’t happen. We are real: engineers, cryptographers, ex-founders, system killers. But we don’t play the PR game.”
FC Barcelona’s financial pressure is growing
The move to collaborate with ZKP comes as FC Barcelona faces increasing financial pressure. The main cause of the crisis is the club’s exorbitant expenditure on players, transfers and wages over the past decade.
Financial pressure increased with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused matchday revenues to collapse. This hit the club particularly hard, because these incomes were among the most important sources of income.
Over the years the club has also been punished for repeatedly breaching Spanish football’s spending limit, with the latest accounts showing a net debt of €469 million.
The club has also committed to a major renovation project, Espai Barça, to rebuild and modernize Barcelona’s home stadium at Camp Nou. The move has placed a heavy long-term debt and financing burden on the sports giant’s balance sheet, with financials showing more than €900 million in stadium-related loans.
Barcelona has attempted to address its finances through asset sales, including parts of its long-term television revenue. However, costly delays to the stadium’s renovation have increased the urgency around revenue generation.
The club was involved in other Web3 ventures over the years, many of which failed. Despite the setbacks, Barcelona has continued its digital initiatives.
Barcelona sold its first non-fungible token (NFT) for $693,000 at Sotheby’s in July 2022. It also launched FC Barcelona Token via Chilliz and Socios in June 2020. These fan tokens sold in less than two hours for $1.3 million.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, the price of the club’s fan token has fallen by more than 73% in the past year.
FC Barcelona Fan Token Prize (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Related articles:
Best Wallet – Diversify Your Crypto Portfolio
- Easy-to-use, feature-driven crypto wallet
- Get early access to upcoming token ICOs
- Multi-chain, multi-wallet, non-custodial
- Now in the App Store, Google Play
- Stake to earn native token $BEST
- 250,000+ monthly active users
#Barcelona #slammed #crypto #deal #Andrew #Tate #Links