Speaking at a meeting with Barcelona fans at his campaign headquarters, Barcelona presidential candidate and asset vice-president Jaume Ferrer has said that his opponent and former marketing and sports vice-president Marc Ingla didn't want to put Unicef on the shirt of the club in 2006:"I'm happy that Ingla now wants to continue with the Unicef model, while he preferred another model which was that of Betandwin, now Bwin. He also approved the option of 'Beijing 2008', the Olympic Games in Beijing. So I'm happy that he at this moment wishes to keep the model of 'More than a club' that includes a solidary commitment."
Asked about the statement of Ferrer, Ingla denied at a press meeting organized by Spanish sports weekly paper Don Balón to have been against Unicef as shirt sponsor and that he, in his function of marketing vice-president, had presented all options to his board colleagues in order for them to make a decision:
"This is not true. What is true is that I led the search for what we would put on the shirts. My main task as marketing vice-president was to explain the different options to the board, with all the positive and negative aspects, so to give the directors the chance to make a decision.
I presented several options to the board, some of which included big amounts of money, more than Madrid is currently getting for their shirt. There was Betandwin and also Beijing 2008. The chance of being linked with the Olympic Games and China when the country had just started a process of opening itself to the world seemed interesting.
But in the end we thought that the Unicef project was the most revolutionary one. I was in charge of that decision and I in fact personally went to New York to present the project to Unicef, starting the contacts with Unicef representatives first in Barcelona and later in Madrid and Geneva. So I was one of the key people in that deal."
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