The commercial office at FC Barcelona hosted the Manuel Vázquez Montalbán International Prize for Sports Journalism panel today, as they sought to decide the winner of the 18th edition. This joint initiative by FC Barcelona and the Catalan Journalists Association aims to acknowledge journalism careers in line with the late Catalan journalist Montalbán's view of journalism and sport as a cultural event that helps explain what goes in societies.

The meeting for this edition gathered together Ramon Besa, Ernest Folch, Sergi Pàmies, Jaume Pujol-Galceran, Borja de Riquer and Josep Maria Solé i Sabaté, with institutional vice-president Josep Cubells acting as host alongside the Club's director of communications Gabriel Martínez. The winner of the 2026 Vázquez Montalbán Prize is set to be announced in due course.

Past prize winners

2004: Patrick Mignon
2005: Joaquim Maria Puyal
2006: Juan Villoro
2007: Simon Kuper
2008: Candido Cannavò
2009: Ramon Besa
2010: Eduardo Galeano
2011: Santiago Segurola
2012: Nick Hornby
2013: Sergi Pàmies
2014: Eduardo Gonçalves de Andrade ‘Tostão’
2017: Michael Robinson
2018: Emanuela Audisio
2019: Jorge Valdano
2022-23: Gary Lineker
2024: Sally Jenkins
2025: Revista Panenka

The prize was not awarded in 2015, 2016 and 2021, and it was canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

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