Barcelona Risk Historic Camp Nou Values with Reported New Kit

Plans for Barcelona's kits for next season have been exclusively unveiled by Spanish newspaper Sport, and for the first time in the club's history, the home kit will feature horizontal stripes instead of vertical ones.

Over the years, we've seen a variety of kits from Barcelona, but the home shirts have been red and blue halves or vertical stripes since 1899.

Why are they doing this? As with most things in football these days, it's for the money.

If kits that look the same continue to be produced, sales will decrease. If the kit is changed sufficiently, however, some supporters will feel they need to pick up the new version.

Obviously, a segment of the fans will be alienated or find the new kit ugly, but there is a lot of money to be made in overseas merchandise markets.

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Fans who feel less tied to the background of the club than supporters who live in Spain or Catalonia might not see anything wrong with the traditional pattern being given a rest for one season.

"Mes que un club" means "more than a club." At some point in their history, Barcelona could state that as their slogan and believe it was true.

But in recent years, their commercial activities have trampled over the phrase, and, really, they're the same as most other big clubs now.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. What the phrase meant in the first place doesn't have nearly as much relevance anymore. 

In 1968, concerned with the threat of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco to Catalan society, Barcelona President Narcis de Carreras invented it. Franco had tried to remove the Catalan stripes, the senyera, from the club's crest.

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Of course, the issue of Catalan independence is still a hot topic these days. But Barcelona recognised that even without the threat of Franco, it was worth keeping the slogan and keeping a strong club identity.

While Real Madrid's identity is tied to their willingness to spend, spend and spend to get the world's best talent, Barcelona's is something different, something purer.

The club's official website, on its "Mes que un club" page, says:

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Now in times of globalisation, Barca has extended its social commitment to the rest of the planet, with a specially significant event being the signing of an agreement with Unicef in 2006, which was a way of saying that a sports club should not be marginal to problems going on in society, in this case, the plight of children around the world. Because of this, Barca continues to be “more than a club” both in Catalonia and elsewhere in the world.

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While there is no doubt Barcelona are happy to help organisations such as UNICEF, there's also the benefit of adding to their image as football's good guys.

That particular image has been tarnished in recent years, though. In 2011-12, they moved the UNICEF logo from its prominent position on the front of the shirt to the back and arranged a £125 million deal with the Qatar Foundation.

They have other shirt sponsors too, with Turkish appliances firm Beko and Intel also contributing to Barcelona's coffers.

Signing Luis Suarez, despite the biting incident and the race row with Patrice Evra, was another move based purely on footballing considerations.

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Again, there's nothing wrong with that provided people accept that Barcelona are becoming a club like any other.

Neymar's controversial signing was another issue that clouded the Blaugrana's whiter-than-white image.

Throw in the transfer ban for breaking FIFA rules over the transfer of minors, and there's plenty of evidence that times have changed.

The new kit design is just the latest move toward becoming a business rather than a club.

It's not an issue or a problem unique to Barcelona by any means, but for them, needing to climb down from the pedestal means the descent is more visible than most.