The shadows of the Barça sponsor promoted by the far-right misogynist Andrew Tate

BarcelonaBarça continues its trend of increasing sponsorship revenue. In the 2024-2025 financial year, it earned €259 million from sponsorships, and it expects to further increase that figure in the current financial year. The most recent agreement is with Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP), a company based in Samoa, a country designated as a tax haven by the European Union. This company specializes in a technology blockchain which prioritizes privacy. "ZKP involves ensuring that the identity of sports fans, data, and intelligence are handled with cryptographic confidence, verifying information with reliable mathematical processes," Barça announced on November 14 regarding an agreement that has gone largely unnoticed by many members unfamiliar with the world of cryptography. crypto.

The announced agreement will entail around three million euros annually until 2028, according to ARA, but it has raised some doubts both within the sector and among the Barça fanbase interested in the matter. One of these doubts is that ZKP operates under the umbrella of another Samoan company, Intershore Consult, which in turn is owned by Intershore Consult Group, a conglomerate based in the British Virgin Islands, which since 2023 has been another "non-cooperative" state for tax purposes according to the EU. Its owners founded it in 2022 with an injection of 100 million dollars. Another shadow hangs over the negotiation of the agreement, which did not take place within the framework of Barça Vision, the branch that attempts to monetize Barça's digital assets in the global ecosystem. cryptoIn fact, the employees of this department were made aware of the agreement very shortly before the club made it official. High-level sources at Barça acknowledge that the agreement, signed and announced until 2028, was negotiated after ZKP contacted the club "by email." ARA has asked the club for more details about these negotiations, such as who led them internally or if intermediaries were involved, but has not yet received a response. What Barça has emphasized, through a rather cryptic official statement, is that it does not use ZKP's technology and that it will "communicate any relevant updates" when it "has conclusive information."

Residuals on social media

The company's social media activity has also raised suspicions. ZKP's Instagram account (@zkp_official) had 265 followers last Thursday and has been posting content for less than two weeks. Meanwhile, its account on X, with the same username, had only 33 followers when the deal was announced and still follows only three accounts: Barça, Bitcoin, and Andrew Tate, a former professional kickboxer, avowed supporter of Donald Trump, and self-confessed misogynist. On November 15, Tate himself posted a video promoting ZKP, which the company's account shared. Hours later, the post was deleted, but the video remains online.

Also troubling is this link to Tate, against whom the UK Crown Prosecution Service filed 21 charges in May, including rape, human trafficking, assault, and controlling prostitution. The legal proceedings are still ongoing. Previously, in 2022, Tate was arrested in Romania, along with his brother, for alleged human trafficking, rape, and membership in an organized criminal group. Subsequently, an appeals court decided to send the case back to the Crown Prosecution Service for review due to procedural irregularities.

An unknown company in the sector

"There's no LinkedIn, no fake transparency. Everyone asks, 'Who's behind this?' As if knowing the names would make the code stronger. This is an excerpt from the manifesto posted on ZKP's website. Indeed, as the company is offshoreIt's difficult to trace who is really behind it.

Regarding this company, industry sources explain to this newspaper that "it is unknown" and that, moreover, it has broken an unwritten rule of not using the technology's name (ZKP) in the company name. ZKP is a cryptography protocol used to create highly secure and anonymous distributed systems. In fact, the Devconnect conference, where the world's leading ZKP experts gathered, took place last week in Buenos Aires, and Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) was not represented. "There has been much discussion within the industry about the incomprehension surrounding Barça reaching an agreement with this company," explain sources present at the conference.