Barcelona sign exclusive deal with Taiping Life

Barcelona star Lionel Messi

Spanish footballing giants FC Barcelona have agreed a multi-year deal with Chinese insurance provider Taiping Life.

The partnership will run until the 2022/2023 and it will grant Taiping Life access to the many LED boards that run around the Nou Camp during fixtures.

Some of the most notable matches include an upcoming showdown against La Liga rivals Atletico Madrid in late April and the ‘Derbi Barceloni’ against Espanyol in May.

However, these matches pale in comparison to some of the UEFA Champions League fixtures that will potentially take place over the coming months.

Barcelona are scheduled to face Italian side Napoli at the Nou Camp on the 19th of March and assuming Barcelona win the two-leg tie, more matches will be held at the near 100,000 capacity behemoth of a stadium.

Barcelona are no strangers to the Chinese market. As a matter of fact, they are currently leading the way for clubs across the globes when it comes to China.

As reported in January of this year, Barcelona are in fact the most popular side in the Chinese online market.

Barcelona’s Asia-Pacific Director Toni Claveria had this to say, “China is an important market for Barcelona.’

‘The cooperation with Taiping Life Insurance further strengthened our commitment to the Chinese market and will also help the club strengthen its connection with Chinese fans and further expand the number of fans.”

Cheng Yonghong, CEO of Taiping Life also said this, “Barça and Taiping both have a rich brand history, and Barça is one of the most successful and popular football clubs worldwide. Barça’s brand promotion successfully reaches every corner around the globe and has a huge fanbase in China.’

‘This partnership will further enhance Taiping’s brand awareness internationally and ability to deliver unique customer service experience.”

Taiping Life customers will be offered the opportunity to visit the Nou Camp, meet former players as well as many other benefits.

Barcelona’s ability to connect with fans across the globe has always been one of their strongest assets off the field. Both the Catalan giants and fierce Spanish rivals Real Madrid have dominated La Liga for what seems like an eternity, as well as the UEFA Champions League.

There is certainly a lot of coverage out here in Australia and it should come as no surprise that there is a lot of coverage in China as well.

The Chinese league has grown exponentially in the last few years, with more and more superstars moving out there to play for clubs such as Guangzhou Evergrande and Beijing Sinobo Guoan F.C.

Some of the biggest players in the Chinese Super League include former Chelsea star Oscar, former Barcelona midfielder Paulinho, Austrian striker Marko Arnautovic who only recently moved to China from English giants West Ham United, Italian winger Stephan El Shaarawy, former Napoli midfielder Marek Hamsik and former Manchester United player Marouane Fellaini.

Many of these players move East in the latter stages of their careers. Fellaini, Hamsik and Paulinho are all examples of that.

However, there are some who, put simply, chase the money and sacrifice the chance to play in Europe in the hopes of setting themselves and their families up after they retire well down the line.

Regardless, it’s a smart move on Barcelona’s behalf to make this deal, which will improve their standing and continuous development in China.

The club arguably needed to make some more positive waves after the debacle that has been the signing of Danish striker Martin Braithwaite.

Braithwaite was only signed as injury cover for French attacker Ousmane Dembele. La Liga granted the Catalans the ability to sign someone, an agreement which didn’t go down well with many fans, despite the club being restricted to signing someone from the domestic league only.

Braithwaite was signed from cellar dwellers Leganes, who as a result of Braithwaite departing, will probably end up in the Second Division for the first time since the 2015/16 season.

So this Taiping Life deal has come at just the right time for Barcelona.

It’s a win-win deal and one can only assume that the game of soccer will only grow from here in China. This is something that all fans can agree on. So hopefully for the Spanish powerhouse, the news of this deal with Taiping Life will get them back in the good books of some.

What are your thoughts on this deal between Barcelona and Taiping Life? Let us know on Twitter @Soccersceneau and get involved in the discussion. Also, feel free to subscribe to our weekly newsletter for more news just like this.

Previous ArticleNext Article

Football Victoria and VicHealth partner on anti-racism program as community sport data reveals systemic problem

Avatar
Image Credit: Shutterstock

Football Victoria has partnered with the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation to roll out the Set The Standard initiative across the state’s football clubs, in a collaboration that signals a significant shift in how Australia’s most popular club-based sport is approaching racism and cultural exclusion at the grassroots level.

The partnership brings together the state’s peak football governing body and its primary health promotion agency around a shared finding that can no longer be treated as incidental. According to the 2025 report Enhancing the Capacity of Victorian Community Sport to Tackle Racism, 56 per cent of surveyed participants had experienced or witnessed racism in community sport. In a state where football draws participants from some of the most culturally diverse communities in the country, that figure represents a systemic failure the sport can no longer address through conduct policies alone.

Clubs that subscribe to the Set The Standard newsletter will be entered into a draw to win one of three $1,000 vouchers, available for equipment, facility improvements, events or other community initiatives. The incentive is designed to drive early engagement with a program whose ambitions extend well beyond a newsletter subscription.

What the Partnership Signals

Racism in sport has historically been treated as a conduct and governance issue, managed through complaints mechanisms that require incidents to be formally reported and tend to significantly undercount the actual prevalence of harm. VicHealth’s framing of racism as a public health problem repositions the entire conversation.

Experiences of racism are associated with measurable negative health outcomes including anxiety, depression and social withdrawal. When community sport, which governments and health agencies actively promote as a vehicle for physical and mental wellbeing, becomes a source of those same harms, the public health cost is direct and quantifiable.

Resources, not Rhetoric

For Football Victoria, the partnership brings something the governing body cannot provide on its own. VicHealth’s credibility, resources and public health framework give the initiative a foundation that a sporting organisation working alone would struggle to establish. Set The Standard offers clubs practical tools and guidance built around progress rather than perfection, which reflects a realistic understanding of how cultural change works inside volunteer-run community organisations.

The $1,000 vouchers are not a side note. Most community clubs operate on tight margins, depend on volunteer administrators and are already stretched managing growing participation demands. Finding room to invest in cultural development programs on top of everything else is difficult. Providing tangible resources directly addresses that constraint at the point where clubs are most likely to disengage.

The program also arrives at a consequential moment. Football in Victoria is absorbing significant participation growth following the AFC Women’s Asian Cup and sustained increases in junior registrations, bringing new communities into the game in large numbers. The 2025 data suggests the environments those communities are entering are not consistently safe or welcoming. Participation growth and cultural safety work need to move together. A sport that grows larger without becoming more inclusive has not actually improved the experience of the people playing it.

The Man Who Built a Women’s Football Program from Nothing is now an Award-Winning Gender Equity Leader

Avatar
Image Credit: Football Victoria

Eight years ago, Spring Hills Football Club did not have a girls’ team. Today it has one of the most recognised women’s programs in Melbourne’s west, a senior NPLW side, and a head coach who has just been named Gender Equity Leader of the Year at the Melton City Council Volunteer Achievement Awards.

Tom Markovski, Spring Hills’ NPLW Head Coach, received the award at a ceremony coinciding with National Volunteer Week, recognised for his community leadership, promotion of gender equality and commitment to advancing the status of women and people of all genders in sport. The recognition comes from outside the football community entirely, awarded by a local council celebrating volunteers across every sector of civic life in one of Melbourne’s fastest-growing regions.

Building from scratch

When Markovski arrived at Spring Hills, women’s football at the club did not exist. His first act was to champion the establishment of the club’s first all-girls team, a process that required persuading a club culture built around men’s football that the investment was worth making.

Women’s football in community clubs has historically struggled to access the same facilities, scheduling priority, coaching resources and institutional support as the men’s game. Clubs have been slow to invest in programs whose return is less immediately visible than a senior men’s premiership, and in a growing outer-suburban community like Melton, where volunteer capacity is finite and demand across every program is high, the case for building something new always has to compete with the urgency of maintaining what already exists.

Markovski made the case anyway, and kept making it across eight years of coaching senior and junior NPL teams while simultaneously building the structural foundations of a women’s program designed to outlast any individual’s involvement. The club’s first all-girls team became multiple junior girls teams. Those junior teams created the pipeline for a senior women’s side. The senior women’s side created visible pathways for younger players to see where the game could take them within their own club.

The outcome is a program that Spring Hills now holds up as central to its identity rather than supplementary to it. The club has become a leader in female participation in Melbourne’s west, and recently made history within the NPLW Victoria structure by fielding junior teams coached entirely by female coaches, a milestone that reflects the depth of the program Markovski helped build.

What the Award Recognises

The Melton City Council’s decision to name Markovski its Gender Equity Leader of the Year places his work in a frame that extends beyond football. Melton is one of the fastest-growing local government areas in Australia, a diverse and rapidly expanding community where the institutions that bring people together, like schools, councils, sporting clubs, carry an outsized responsibility for social cohesion.

Mayor Cr. Lara Carli, speaking at the awards ceremony, reflected on the role volunteers play in communities like Melton’s. “Volunteering creates friendships, strengthens communities and builds a sense of belonging,” she said. “It helps people feel connected, supported and valued, and those things are more important than ever in a growing and diverse community like ours.”

For the girls now playing football at Spring Hills who were not playing anywhere eight years ago, Markovski’s contribution is not abstract. It is the specific and concrete fact of having somewhere to play, someone to coach them, and a pathway that leads somewhere.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend