FCBARCELONA.CAT

07.08.2007 02:22

The most social tour

David Saura

Thanks to the FC Barcelona Foundation, social objectives are also of importance on this Asian tour and contribute to the club’s position as ‘More than a club in the world'.

Traditionally sports training and commercial commitments have been the main purposes for tours, with activities generally balanced between the two. But FC Barcelona and its Foundation have preferred to do a little more than the usual and make the club’s traditional commitment to caring issues part of the project too.

Specific actions

This desire is shown by acts of solidarity such as what happened at the Beijing International Conference Centre, where Barça was present at a charity gala to raise money for the disabled. Further projects include a similar supper to be held in Hong Kong, organised by the Spinal Injury Foundation and the United Christian Hospital, to help people with back problems.

This is all part of the club’s social commitments and the virtuous circle that has characterised the club in recent years in both a sporting and economic sense. To present this concern for more vulnerable sectors of society and to secure new institutional agreements with local organisations, the general manager of the Foundation, Lander Unzueta, has travelled on the club tour, along with the International projects manager Marta Segú.

The Foundation’s activities

Both are also responsible for promoting FC Barcelona’s international notoriety, through its deal with Unicef, as the model for opening the doors to cooperation and solidarity to more people than ever. These people have been two of the engines of the Foundation’s projects over the past season, through such projects as the XICS (International Network of Solidarity Centres), JES (Solidarity Sports Days) and the development of the Unicef agreement. These projects have focused both on Catalonia and the world in general.

New challenges

The FC Barcelona Foundation represents the club’s social identity, and has new projects planned for this season, which will use the club’s most notorious instrument, football, as a tool and not an end in itself for achieving commitment to society.

Initiatives like ‘Play It’, forming part of the Sports and Citizenship programme, are among the new the new schemes unveiled by the club for this season, which will be placing a special focus on education and health. That is not forgetting the social area which, for example, will be helping more people around the world to enjoy the right to leisure time.