FC Barcelona’s sponsorship with a Samoa-registered crypto firm marketed as ZKP has prompted public outcry after the club signed a three-year deal. The partnership coincided with a token whitelist that reportedly registered 200,000 participants, and a club statement on November 26, 2025 distanced Barcelona from any token issuance.
Opacity and financial context of FC Barcelona sponsorship
ZKP’s corporate footprint displayed limited public information, an unusually small social presence and an asserted registration in Samoa under an alleged legal name, Braxova Ltd. The company promoted a “$100M infrastructure & AI network” and described itself as a potential “key altcoin for 2025”, claims that critics flagged as promotional rather than verifiable. Zero-knowledge proof is a cryptographic method that lets one party prove a statement is true without revealing underlying data. Observers noted the absence of clear leadership disclosures, including a public record for an individual presented as the firm’s “head of blockchain”, underscoring opacity around corporate identity and accountability.
The sponsorship sits against a stretched club balance sheet. Public figures cited in the controversy include a net debt of €469 m and more than €900 m of stadium-related borrowing for the Espai Barça project, alongside a prior €141 m writedown from an earlier Web3 venture, Barça Vision. Those figures framed commentary that Barcelona’s management may have pursued high-risk commercial options to address liquidity and capital needs.
Martin Calladine described the lack of information as “deeply concerning”, and former board director Xavier Vilajoana commented that “it is incredibly concerning that Barca’s leadership would choose to associate the club with a company whose background raises so many red flags.” Those short quotes reflect reputational and governance anxieties rather than technical token mechanics.
Market and reputational implications
The deal highlights a wider move by football clubs to monetize crypto partnerships: league-wide sponsorship activity rose markedly in the 2024/25 season, cited as a 64% year-over-year increase. Clubs have frequently traded short-term capital for experimental digital partnerships, with several high-profile agreements later ending in termination or writedowns. ZKP framed its Barcelona activation as a major growth lever and distributed promotional content that, according to reports, intersected with contentious influencer channels; a version of promotional video material featuring ZKP’s logo circulated from an influencer soon after the deal became public.
Barcelona’s official statement explicitly denied any connection to, or responsibility for, a token that appeared in the market narrative. That disavowal raises a governance question about the sponsorship contract’s scope: whether the deal was intended purely as a technology brand partnership or included token-related rights and responsibilities. For institutional counterparties—sponsors, investors and treasury managers—the ambiguity increases counterparty and reputational risk, and it concentrates decision friction around contract disclosure and oversight.
The episode underscores misaligned incentives between urgent commercial needs and long-term brand stewardship, exposing concentration risk in Barcelona’s revenue strategy. The next verified milestone is disclosure or clarification of the sponsorship contract terms by the club, which will determine whether operational controls and accountability mechanisms are adequate to prevent further governance and market fallout.
