When did UNICEF start playing football?

Well, not quite. Those familiar with professional football (soccer, keep up!) will know that professional teams tend to have their biggest sponsor's logo emblazoned across the chest of the soccer jersey, as evidenced below:

Bayern Munich Jersey

You get the idea. I was going to show you a jersey from the English and Italian leagues as well but Blogger's been un-cooperative. Anyways, it came as some surprise to me (mainly because I am so unobservant) that FC Barcelona, one of the top teams (if not the top) in Spain and in Europe, didn't have a corporate sponsor on their jersey:

This is their 2006-07 Home kit. What's funny is that these are now outdated. Apparently, FC Barcelona has signed an agreement with UNICEF, the UN children's organization, to have their logo on their jersey. The price? 1.5 million euros. But it's the other way around. FC Barcelona is contributing that amount ANNUALLY to fund UNICEF projects. They debuted these new jerseys in the Champions League against Levski Sofia, routing them 5-0:

I don't see this as a start of a trend, nor do I think this will make FC Barcelona any more popular (I doubt I'll see aid workers snap up Cdn $100+ Barca jerseys just because UNICEF's logo is on it...), but it's interesting to see a team that's eschewed a corporate logo for so long went this route instead. And while other teams give back to their respective communities in other ways, it doesn't diminish what FC Barcelona has done.

So they deserve a hat tip.