Rakuten, Inc. on Monday announced its official partnership with FCBEscola, the FC Barcelona football school, which provides training to children in more than 20 countries across the globe using the legendary club’s football style and methodology.
Rakuten initially reached a sponsorship deal with FC Barcelona in November 2016, when the sides made headlines with an agreement reaching 220 million euro ($274 million).
The partnership announcement illustrates the parties’ well established collaboration, which has now extended to include the agendas of FCBEscola.
Today’s agreement comes ahead of an upcoming annual “FCBEscola International Tournament presented by Rakuten,” slated to take place between March 26 to 29. The tournament is expected to encompass 172 teams from 45 schools, up from 33 in 2017.
According to the statement, Rakuten’s sports and entertainment social media channel will provide live coverage of the championship stages of the event. For the first time in the event’s history, the winners will be presented with the ‘FCBEscola Rakuten Cup’.
Future plans
Rakuten is set to continue its support of FCBEscola in the upcoming 2018-19 season, which officially gets underway in April. The company has also taken steps to support two Japanese branches of Escola, located in Katsushika City, Tokyo.
In addition, a new Japanese school has been established in Nara Prefecture. Rakuten branding will be placed on the uniforms of all three schools ahead of their respective seasons.
Rakuten has been highly active in expanding both its name recognition efforts and its operational capacity.
In addition to sponsorship deals and partnerships, the company has also been aiming to enter the crypto space for some time now. Last month, Rakuten publicized its intention to create its own cryptocurrency, called Rakuten Coin.
Rakuten is highly involved in a variety of industries and has been successful in doing so. The company has long been recognized as a major competitor in the foreign Exchange industry.
