FCBARCELONA.CAT

14.02.2007 02:50

New drive for international charity cooperation

The Fundació FC Barcelona and the Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional (AECI) have announced a new collaboration agreement that will help finance the Foundations’ international cooperation projects.

The agreement with the AECI will further strengthen the Foundation’s role in social projects, which promotes the notion of being “more than a club”, and which president Joan Laporta considers to be one of the “core elements of the club”. The Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional is a prestigious body to be working with, and this is the first time it has ever signed an agreement with a football club.

Praise for Barça

Leire Pajín, secretary of Cooperació Internacional, highlighted "Barça’s commitment to the underprivileged" and commended the club on its concern for social issues via its Foundation. "We had no doubts whatsoever about initiating this stable cooperation with Barça", said Leire Pajín, before going on to add that the AECI feels "especially comfortable and pleased with this agreement".

Through the agreement, Barça becomes “a new agent and ally in the fight against poverty, a common objective of ours", commented Leire Pajín, who publicly congratulated the club on "being fully aware of what being ‘more than a club’ should mean". This is the first time that the AECI has signed such a major collaboration agreement with a football club’s foundation, the objective being for the two organisations to cooperate in international projects.

Laporta: "We don’t want to let you down"

Joan Laporta is grateful to the AECI for their collaboration, and described the “importance and prestige” of their being able to work together. He continued by saying that the club is committed to ensuring that the AECI will not regret showing such confidence in Barça: "In doing this social work, we are fully convinced that we are doing the right thing. It is our responsibility and we are doing it because being ‘more than a club’ has to be demonstrated through examples. This agreement gives us the hope and encouragement to do things better and better."

Five year duration

The agreement is for five years, and will form part of the XICS programme, an international network of solidarity centres for education and sport being promoted by the Foundation. The XICS programme is one of the Fundació FC Barcelona’s own projects in which sport is used as a tool for the social integration of boys and girls at risk of exclusion through education, health care and psychosocial support.