China And Japan Are Important To Barcelona – Josep Maria Bartomeu

Barcelona will continue to target the United States market and want to promote the growth of football in the country, particularly in the women’s game, president Josep Maria Bartomeu has said.

“It is a key market for us,” Bartomeu said. “In the U.S. football, more and more, is a sport that is more inside society. People are starting to watch games.

“And Barca, we want to help [it grow], coming here to promote football but also coming here to learn from competition, because this is an exchange of information and an exchange of knowledge.

“Other markets are important for us, like China and Japan, but the U.S is very important. I think football itself, men’s and women’s, is more and more on television, which is important.”

One of the objectives of Barca’s tour has been to promote the women’s game, and Bartomeu said the club still plans to launch a franchised side in California to join the National Women’s Soccer League.

“We’re working on it,” the president said. “We’re ambitious and we want to support women’s sport — so why not, in the coming years, have a franchise in the U.S?

“It’s a very nice and real possibility to be in this major league. It’s a very good league, a very good competition, very good players. Why not have a team in Europe and a team in the U.S.?

“We would like California because we know there are a lot of football fans in California. It will help the women’s sport itself, but it will also help Barca to be closer to the fans.”