Is Tanzania moving to take DRCongo’s place at FC Barcelona?

“RD Congo, cœur de l’Afrique” has vanished from FC Barcelona’s training shirts. In football, a missing logo can say as much as a press conference. In this case, it points to a partnership that has drifted into uncertainty, with Kinshasa struggling to keep control of a deal it once presented as a major diplomatic victory.

Now Tanzania is moving into the space DRC has left open. According to information obtained by The Great Lakes Eye, Tanzanian officials have held talks with Barcelona over a possible partnership as the DRC agreement remains stalled.

The four-year deal, signed in 2025 and valued at around €40 million, was supposed to place DRC before a global football audience. The package included branding across Barcelona teams, plans for a “House of DRC” at Camp Nou, and football-development programs.

The project has become entangled in delayed payments and a dispute over who brokered the agreement and who should be paid.

Former French footballer Olivier Nsiabamfumu, who runs Ya’ats Sports, says he began developing the Barcelona project in 2023. Kinshasa later gave French businessman Aurélien Logeais, linked to Pamars and Ventilo Sports, a mandate to negotiate with European clubs.

The commission at stake was substantial—reportedly as much as 10 percent of the contract value.

Reporting by Mediapart, citing emails and a recorded discussion, suggested Barcelona was prepared to recognize only one intermediary. That left the club caught between competing claims while Kinshasa failed to resolve the dispute quickly enough to protect its showcase partnership.

Tanzania did not wait. In September, Information, Culture, Arts, and Sports Minister Paul Makonda spent several days in Barcelona at the invitation of club president Joan Laporta. He met club officials and players and appeared alongside Laporta at Camp Nou.

Publicly, the visit was framed around football development and cooperation ahead of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, which Tanzania will co-host. But the timing was impossible to miss.

While DRC was bogged down in arguments over money, mandates, and intermediaries, Tanzania was building relationships.

No agreement replacing the DRC has yet been formally announced. But the contrast is already damaging for Kinshasa.

This was supposed to be a statement of ambition. Instead, DRC allowed a multimillion-euro partnership with one of football’s biggest brands to become clouded by internal disputes and uncertainty.

Barcelona’s shirts now carry the clearest verdict on the state of the deal: DRC bought the space but failed to secure it. And Tanzania, alert to the opening, is already making its run.