ABSTRACT
Such a contention is premised on an established business model that seems to prevail across world football. That is, a club needs to be like Manchester United in order to prosper: extending their brand, creating new merchandising opportunities, exploiting new media and so on. What is so interesting, and indeed refreshing, is that Barca appears to have adopted a different model. The goal is for the club to secure the same ends as clubs such as United, but the means of doing this are considerably different. Certainly the approach is socially, ethically and morally more principled. As a model of corporate social responsibility it is exemplary, certainly in football, similarly so in sport, possibly even in the business world as a whole.
