How Fortinet is Keeping Football Secure for FC Barcelona
Fortinet and FC Barcelona have embarked on a partnership that will see the Cybersecurity company be the official partner of the football titans’ new stadium.
As the beautiful game becomes increasingly digitised through things like VAR, sensors in footballs, and data being transferred to screens, cybersecurity is increasingly recognised as critical for major sports venues to protect fan experiences and club operations.
So as part of the three year agreement, Fortinet will be charged with securing the iconic Camp Nou stadium in time for it to finish its renovation as part of a wider US$1.6bn project.
The Spotify Camp Nou stadium renovation is part of FC Barcelona’s Espai Barça plan, which aims to redevelop and expand all of FC Barcelona’s infrastructure.
Innovation ambitions
"Espai Barça must be the catalyst for the Club's digital transformation, and cybersecurity is a fundamental pillar," said Juli Guiu, FC Barcelona's VP of Marketing. "Our alliance with Fortinet ensures our facilities will have the most advanced protection and a secure digital environment for all visitors."
Along increasing the stadium capacity to a whopping 105,000 seats, the project will introduce a roof to the stadium, marking the construction of the largest roof in Europe; renovate training facilities, the Palau Blaugrana; the club’s offices as well as the commercial and leisure facilities.
This is all part of the Espai Barça push to make an international innovation hub at the forefront of new technologies.
“Building on Fortinet’s history of cybersecurity innovation spanning more than 20 years, we’re proud to support FC Barcelona’s ambitious vision to create an international innovation hub powered by industry-leading, cutting-edge technologies,” said John Maddison, Chief Marketing Officer of Fortinet.
Fortinet is therefore positioned to provide the cyber basis to keep at least a part of this project safe from cyber incidents.
“Our shared goal of developing Spotify Camp Nou into one of the world’s leading stadiums is made possible by leveraging the Fortinet Security Fabric platform to secure its digital environment.”
Keeping football safe
Fortinet's Security Fabric platform is an integrated cybersecurity platform that provides comprehensive visibility and control across an organisation's entire digital infrastructure - from endpoints and networks to multi-cloud environments.
It converges Fortinet's networking and security solutions into a unified fabric powered by AI/machine learning, enabling automated threat detection, prevention and policy enforcement.
This Security Fabric platform, including FortiGate next-generation firewalls, will also secure stadium Wi-Fi, OT infrastructure, and the data centre.
Fortinet’s Zero Trust Network Access and endpoint security will protect users and devices accessing applications from any location.
All technologies are to be placed so they integrate seamlessly with FC Barcelona’s existing IT investments, enhancing security and efficiency across Spotify Camp Nou.
Fans can breath easy
With the growth of the stadium and the accompanying innovation hubs in the area, the attack surface of FC Barcelona is due to expand massively.
Fortunately, Fortinet's experience in large project is ample to give it precedence on how to tackle the task; its work with recognized public and private entities, including computer emergency response teams, government agencies and the academic world are testament.
Therefore, all supporters to the stadium should have to worry about is if their club can score enough to secure victory.
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