A goal from Ronaldinho opens the FC Barcelona office in New York

This Tuesday, FC Barcelona inaugurated its new offices in New York at an event held on the 20th floor of 250 Park Avenue, the space that is now home to the Club’s corporate headquarters in the city, right in the heart of Manhattan.

President Josep Maria Bartomeu led the Club’s delegation for this historic event which featured an iconic moment as Ronaldinho was the man charged with the task of scoring Barça’s first goal in the United States, which he did by kicking a ball into a small goal to symbolize the inspiring path that the Club is about to tread in the country, where it shall be seeking new trade opportunities and promoting its social and charitable side.

President Bartomeu was accompanied by the First Vice President Jordi Cardoner, the Vice Presidents Jordi Mestre and Manel Arroyo, and the women’s team footballer Line Røddik Hansen. In addition to President Bartomeu, the MLS commissioner Don Garber and the United States Ambassador to Spain, James Costos, also gave speeches.

‘FCBLovesNY’ welcome video

Some thirty guests packed the main hall in the office, where a video was shown of the first team players greeting New Yorkers who, in turn, welcomed Barça to the Big Apple. The video went down tremendously well among the select group of people attending the event, who included former Barça players Hristo Stoichkov and David Villa, the ambassador for La Liga in the United States, Raúl González, cardiologist Valentí Fuster, and the oncologist Josep Baselga. 

Afterwards, the FCB delegation and their guests moved on to a cocktail reception at Mad 46 restaurant at the top of the Roosevelt Hotel, from where they could enjoy splendid views of the New York skyline.

250 m2 Barça space with its own executive team

FC Barcelona’s new home on Park Avenue takes up 250 square metres of one of the most emblematic buildings in Midtown Manhattan, where the British banking giant HSBC is also based and which is located just three blocks away from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

The office has been designed as a highly functional facility, which can be transformed in a matter of minutes for use in a wide variety of different activities, and where all kinds of events can be held. The idea is to create a corporate space that can be used to channel new business agreements in a modern football-inspired ambience. The site is also designed as a multi-purpose venue for holding events, screening important games, conducting presentations and catering for club members.

Objectives: social, charitable and commercial expansion

The opening of this new office is a strategic decision made by the FC Barcelona president and his board. It represents a broadening of Barça’s international reach and a vital commercial link for the discovery of new sources of income and forms part of the Club’s strategic plan for the period of 2016-2021, one of the principal objectives of which is to reach the figure of 1,000 million euros in income by 2021.

The Club’s arrival in New York will see the development of a commercial push in the territory to back up the work of the Club’s office in Hong Kong, opened in 2014, in the Asian market. The Club’s commercial activity will extend to all 24 hours of the day and seven days a week.

FC Barcelona’s social and charity commitments will also be one of the main priorities for the new office. In this area, the goal is to increase the presence of the FC Barcelona Foundation in the United States as well as promoting new Supporters’ Clubs.

The office falls under the institutional supervision of Mr. Arroyo, the Vice President responsible for the Area of Marketing and Communications, and is headed by the Austrian Arno Trabesinger, accompanied by two more Club executives who are making the move to New York. The first is Gerard Guiu, who previously was head of the Presidential cabinet and project director of the Social Area; the second is Arturo De la Fuente, who forms part of the Marketing Department. Both will be involved in developing plans for commercial and institutional relations within the business plan of the new delegation. 

Statement from Josep Maria Bartomeu:

“Today Barça begins a new era in which we wish to spread our reach across the world. The opening of this office in New York is a strategic decision made by the Board for not just commercial reasons but also social and charity ones.

Barça has a great relation with the USA on a commercial level that brings us together with great companies from the country and our Foundation as well has agreements with important bodies such as Unicef and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the social and charity field.”

We want to explain to the world what Barça will be and where we are going: we aspire to be most global, admired and loved sporting institution on the planet. With this new office and with the opening of the office in Hong Kong two years ago, now we can say that FC Barcelona is a twenty four hours a day, seven days a week operation.”

FC Barcelona’s new home on Park Avenue takes up 250 square metres of one of the most emblematic buildings in Midtown Manhattan, where the British banking giant HSBC is also based and which is located just three blocks away from the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

The office has been designed as a highly functional facility, which can be transformed in a matter of minutes for use in a wide variety of different activities, and where all kinds of events can be held. The idea is to create a corporate space that can be used to channel new business agreements in a modern football-inspired ambience. The site is also designed as a multi-purpose venue for holding events, screening important games, conducting presentations and catering for club members.

Objectives: social, charitable and commercial expansion

The opening of this new office is a strategic decision made by the FC Barcelona president and his board. It represents a broadening of Barça’s international reach and a vital commercial link for the discovery of new sources of income and forms part of the Club’s strategic plan for the period of 2016-2021, one of the principal objectives of which is to reach the figure of 1,000 million euros in income by 2021.

The Club’s arrival in New York will see the development of a commercial push in the territory to back up the work of the Club’s office in Hong Kong, opened in 2014, in the Asian market. The Club’s commercial activity will extend to all 24 hours of the day and seven days a week.

FC Barcelona’s social and charity commitments will also be one of the main priorities for the new office. In this area, the goal is to increase the presence of the FC Barcelona Foundation in the United States as well as promoting new Supporters’ Clubs.

The office falls under the institutional supervision of Mr. Arroyo, the Vice President responsible for the Area of Marketing and Communications, and is headed by the Austrian Arno Trabesinger, accompanied by two more Club executives who are making the move to New York. The first is Gerard Guiu, who previously was head of the Presidential cabinet and project director of the Social Area; the second is Arturo De la Fuente, who forms part of the Marketing Department. Both will be involved in developing plans for commercial and institutional relations within the business plan of the new delegation. 

Statement from Josep Maria Bartomeu:

“Today Barça begins a new era in which we wish to spread our reach across the world. The opening of this office in New York is a strategic decision made by the Board for not just commercial reasons but also social and charity ones.

Barça has a great relation with the USA on a commercial level that brings us together with great companies from the country and our Foundation as well has agreements with important bodies such as Unicef and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in the social and charity field.”

We want to explain to the world what Barça will be and where we are going: we aspire to be most global, admired and loved sporting institution on the planet. With this new office and with the opening of the office in Hong Kong two years ago, now we can say that FC Barcelona is a twenty four hours a day, seven days a week operation.”