Barcelona gives up on Olympic deal and eye on Nokia

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The Primera Liga club has opted out of a shirt sponsorship contract that would have involved advertising the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, and reportedly only considers European and American multinationals as prospective partners.

Now that potential deals with Phizer, the pharmaceutical firm that manufactures Viagra, gambling company Betandwin, as well as the Peking 2008 Olympic committee, are out of the picture, the club is in talks with Finnish mobile phone manufacturers Nokia, which has arisen as the most likely candidate. The club which seeks to raise EU 15m a-year from shirt sponsorship, said that if no sponsor is found, it may attempt to raise funds by renegotiating with suppliers, possibly shirt manufacturer Nike with which it has a EU 12m deal running until 2008 but it is anticipated that talks will be lengthy and complicated.