Presentation of the report on the first year of the of FC Barcelona and Barça Foundation Child Protection System

This Wednesday, the report on the FC Barcelona and Foundation Child Protection System was presented in the Auditori 1899 at Spotify Camp Nou. The event, which was hosted by President Joan Laporta, served to present a public account of the first year of this pioneering system in European sport, and which highlights the commitment of FC Barcelona and its Foundation to compliance with the principles of transparency and accountability. Such a report is a groundbreaking measure in terms of the protection of children in both a sporting and social sense, and further showcases the club's position as a benchmark for transparency.

This system, developed and managed by the Compliance Department and the Barça Foundation, with the support of Espirales Consultoría, is designed to guarantee the protection and comprehensive well-being of all children who are part of the club or its Foundation with regard to any type of violence, including bullying, sexual abuse and psychological violence, whether in the family, in sports, at school, or anywhere else. This means striving to promote safe and protective environments based on children's rights and the best interests of each person.

Hence today's event, at which FC Barcelona summarised in an unprecedented report, the different actions connected to the system during the 2022/23 season.

Detected cases

During the 2022/23 season, the Action Protocol was activated on ten occasions to address high-risk situations involving children. Importantly, most of these cases (seven of the ten) arose from situations caused by people unrelated to the activities, projects and programmes of FC Barcelona and the FC Barcelona Foundation. This shows that children view these institutions as safe environments where they can ask for help, knowing they will get it from expert professionals, including help with external matters concerning their families, schools or other social and personal settings.

The three identified situations involving people from the club itself were between children and other minors, with 24 people affected in total, while the other was a situation of vulnerability.

In all cases, the Action Protocol was implemented, which involved reporting the incident to the social services, providing individual and group support and holding workshops with the aim of stopping, protecting and repairing the damage caused.

Delegates and officers

During this first year, the professional teams were formed to oversee the application of the Protection System, specifically, a team of 21 Protection Delegates and a team of 61 Protection Officers. All the sports sections, as well as the Barça Academies in Catalonia, New York and Miami, have such officers to ensure that all the children in their charge have specific, trained adults to ehom they can turn for protection and well-being.

The FC Barcelona Foundation also provided face-to-face training in Catalonia and in seven other countries (Chile, Colombia, Greece, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru and the Dominican Republic) to boost the skills of 371 professionals, and thus improve the protection of 6,732 children.

And awareness sessions were held with more than 700 boys and girls around topics such as the prevention of sexual abuse, bullying, respect for peers and safe internet use.

The results are the outcome of good coordination both on the FC Barcelona Protection Committee and among the FC Barcelona Foundation, with regular meetings to follow up cases, coordination sessions with the Protection Delegates, and training programmes for Protection Officers. The aim now is to maintain this level of internal coordination through the 2023/24 season, and to expand the possibilities for coordination with the competent authorities, given the good relations established.