By Chris Wright
Reports emanating from Israel (namely the Ma’ariv newspaper) are claiming that Barcelona’s historic shirt sponsorship deal with the Qatar Foundation is in jeopardy as the Arab organisation have been accused of forging direct links with Islamic (and, for the record, Palestinian) terrorist group Hamas.
Ma’ariv are reporting that Israeli diplomats have been flown out to Catalonia with the express intent of trying to persuade Barca into backing out of the five-year, €150 million deal they signed just a fortnight ago.
Spanish paper El Mundo have also concerned themselves, speculating that the Qatar Foundation may have donated large sums of money to conker-box scholar Yusuf al Qaradawi – a hard-line Egyptian Muslim scholar and staunch advocate of religious segregation, ‘light’ domestic violence, female circumcision and flagrant anti-Semitism.
Sounds like a cauldron full of horse-sh*t being slowly stirred to me, but we’ll keep you posted.