Bobby's reply

believe what you want, dude. my information came from published reports (at the time) that laporta was forced to do a volte face after a revolt by the 'socios.' if you prefer to think ft's version is "fact" and the rest are "myth," that's no skin off my nose.

but purely for argument's sake, can you explain how putting unicef on the shirt amounts to "face-saving" for laporta?

if the chinese deal wasn't good enough (and if we are actually to believe the champions of spain and europe, and employers of the world's most popular footballer would have difficulty lining up another sponsor with deep pockets), laporta could simply have gone back to the slogan-free shirt -- retaining the prestige that comes with that.

or he could have followed the real madrid example of a few years ago, when their shirt advertized the club's website: that would have brought some benefit to the barca (more eyeballs for the website) without seeming crassly commercial.

despite having these perfectly acceptable and face-saving options, he specifically picked unicef. you don't want to give the guy credit for that -- that's fine. but how do you conclude that his choice was made on dodgy grounds?

and why exactly would laporta need to save face? the guy had just presided over barca's european triumph, its second successive domestic championship and the warm glow of ronaldinho's superstardom. madrid may fire coaches with that sort of record, but at barca we tend to genuflect before such success.

as i have said before, barca will one day bow to commercial logic (helped by the fact that catalan nationalism is not as virulent as it used to be) and sell its shirt space. until then, we will retain our bragging rights.

meanwhile, you and i seem to be in agreement about the quality of capello's madrid. who would have thought!