FCBARCELONA.CAT

22.01.2008 16:40

Puig collects Ernest Lluch award for fair play

Jaume Marcet

The manager of the FC Barcelona Aleví B team, Albert Puig, was presented with the Fundació Ernest Lluch award for fair play today. The Barça youth coach was joined at the Melcior Colet Museum by youth managers and trainers from the club.

“It is an award for fair play that recognises careers or gestures that honour the sport” is the definition offered by the Fundació Ernest Lluch for the award that was collected on Tuesday by Albert Puig.

Clean play

The events that led to Puig collecting this prize unfolded on April 8 at Peralada in the final of a youth competition between Barça and Espanyol. A Barça player went down injured and the Espanyol players kindly kicked the ball out of play in order for him to be treated, whereupon Barça promptly scored. Realising the injustice, Puig insisted that his Barça youngsters allowed Espanyol to score a goal unchallenged and thus make amends for the error.
Romà Cuyàs, president of the Spòrts Commission of the Fundació Ernest Lluch said that what the Barça coach had done was “exemplary and an example of what football should be like”.

Human values

In his speech, Albert Puig thanked everybody that had helped him to enjoy the pleasure of running one of the youth sides at the club he loves so dearly. Puig thought back to that April 8 in Peralada saying, “I have thought about that moment a lot. That short second was full of the absorption of values that, drop by drop, little by little, are influenced by all the people you meet throughout your life, and make you who you are”.

He also spoke about his career as a youth coach. “We all have a huge responsibility to teach the human values of respect, tolerance, happiness and love to our players”.

Barça representation

Directors Albert Vicens, Rafel Yuste, Jacint Borràs and Joan Franquesa all joined Puig in the Sala Pierre Coubertin at the Melcior Colet Museum. Barça’s youth teams were also represented in the forms of Tito Vilanova, Albert Benaiges, Juan Carlos Bueno, Rodolf Borrell, Sergi Domènech and delegate Francesc Latorre. Josep Manel Casanova, who runs the youth football at Espanyol, the other club involved in the incident, also made sure of appearing at the ceremony.