FCBARCELONA.CAT

Speech at the UNHCR Headquarters

Below is the speech made by Chairman Joan Laporta on 22 January 2008 in Geneva at the signing of the agreement with UNHCR.

Ladies and gentlemen,

FC Barcelona’s raison d’être is football.

The people who founded the club at the end of the 19th century wanted to play football. They were men who had made sport into their way of life. That is why they got together and founded FC Barcelona.

Nevertheless, as the club grew the same men made sure it became part of the social fabric of Catalonia.

In other words, they were immediately aware that FC Barcelona was part of Catalan civil society and that they had to act accordingly.

Unfortunately we Catalans understand what it means to be forced to leave our country and our families, as this has happened in our history as the consequence of a civil war.

We often say that Catalonia is a nation without a state. That, however, is not entirely accurate, as today we are part of Spain. Indeed Catalonia has often been a nation with not one but two states which have asked us to integrate.

Perhaps because of this, we Catalans needed to fend for ourselves and become aware that we had to do everything that the state did not.

On 26 November the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr António Guterres, said in his speech at the third symposium on corporate social responsibility and humanitarian aid that there was need for a commitment on the part of civil society, the media and the private sector to face up to what he called the three main reasons why people leave their places of origin and become refugees: poverty, climate change and the degradation of the environment, and conflicts and persecution.

Mr Guterres also said that as a result of population movements our societies are becoming multiethnic, multireligious and multicultural.

Like all other football and sports clubs, FC Barcelona is a reflection of society. Globalisation has opened up markets and today all clubs have in their first and youth teams players from all parts of the planet and from all the ethnic groups and all the religions in the world.

I do not believe that football clubs are unique but we are a good observatory for seeing how our societies are evolving.

I am saying all this to show you why a football club is about to sign an agreement with the UN High Commission for Refugees.

Because we have a social conscience and because we understand that football and sport, their values of effort, discipline, sacrifice and team working, are ideal tools for educating our societies.

Because we believe that it is only fair to give back to society a part of the many things it gives us every day.

Because it doesn’t cost anything to try to make children happy, and their smiles are our greatest victories.

This social commitment of FC Barcelona has led us, through our Foundation, to sign up for in the UN Millennium Goals in 2006 and to sign a number of agreements with UNICEF and UNESCO.

In addition to these global agreements, the FC Barcelona Foundation also drives educational programmes and conferences whose guiding theme is sport as a tool for the social inclusion of the most vulnerable children. This is designed to improve access to education and training for children and young people and to foster the values of sport as an educational tool for making better citizens.

The agreement we are signing with the UNHCR is based on the same idea: to raise awareness in society in general about the extreme vulnerability of millions of refugees around the world and the importance of sport as a means of education and social inclusion.

We have opted for a comprehensive focus on education which takes in nutrition, education, health care, access to drinking water, social and psychological support, legal protection and sex equality.

It is the first agreement of its kind. For the first time UNHCR and a football club are to work together on specific programmes to support and protect refugees and displaced persons, and special attention is to be paid to children to ensure suitable physical, emotional and intellectual development through sport.

We will put these programmes in place together in the camps, settlements and countries that we agree on, and we shall be responsible for finding the necessary funding.

With this agreement, UNHCR and FC Barcelona are taking on an extraordinary public commitment. We are fully and absolutely aware of this. It is a commitment which we find both encouraging and exciting.

It will be FC Barcelona’s toughest match. We are ready to play it.

Thank you very much.