The Other Football: Time to End the Unholy Alliance Between Qatar and Barcelona

Now that world soccer’s corruption schemes have started to be exposed, the time is ripe to take a concerted look at some of the unsavory deals that exist in our sport and seek some transparency.

As much controversy as there’s been over FIFA’s handing the 2018 World Cup finals to Russia and to Qatar in 2022, we need an even greater examination of how these countries spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the process.

A good start would be for FC Barcelona to tear up its deal with the Gulf state of Qatar.

Barcelona’s sponsorship deal with Qatar Sports Investment, started in 2011 and is reportedly worth nearly $200 million.

The deal, which meant having the Qatar Foundation and now Qatar Airways on its prized shirts, is up for re-negotiation in 2016.

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“The fact that FC Barcelona, for example, is sponsored by Qatar,”  which Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, told Fox News Latino, “openly backs [the U.S.-designated terrorist group] Hamas and has become a permissive environment for a wide range of illicit financial activity, is a black eye for the sport.”

Schanzer – who is now the vice president of research with the Washington, D.C., based Foundation for Defense of Democracies – drew a comparison with a certain disgraced NFL quarterback.

“Michael Vick was jailed for dog fighting, and fans refused to wear his jersey. I am amazed that we have not seen a similar reaction to Qatar appearing on soccer jerseys.”

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In Russia, Gazprom, the government-controlled energy giant, got involved in soccer when it took ownership of Russian premier league side Zenit Saint Petersburg.

From there, its spending spree spread, most notably to English premier league champions, Chelsea.

But Chelsea doesn’t wear the word “Gazprom” on its shirts. At least not yet.

Additionally, Gazprom is an official sponsor of the UEFA Champions League and inked a deal in 2013 with now-disgraced FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his organization to become a major sponsor of the World Cup in the years leading up to 2018.

The signing ceremony was presided over by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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“Gazprom and Putin are inexorably linked,” Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert with FDD The Russian government is the majority owner. The success of Gazprom, Russia's most profitable company, is directly linked to the stability of the Putin regime as oil and gas sales account for over 50 percent of federal budget revenues.” Boris Zilberman – a Russia expert with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,  a Washington-based foreign policy and security NGO – told Fox News.

“Soccer clubs should certainly reconsider their Gazprom sponsorship,” Zilberman added.

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