FCBARCELONA.CAT

23.11.2007 18:50

Barça sign historic agreement with UNESCO

Marc Parramon/Roger Bogunyà

The Fundáción of FC Barcelona and UNESCO signed an historic agreement of cooperation on Friday afternoon in Paris. The alliance will allow work to start in a new manner to help solve the problems of underprivileged children around the world.

Blaugrana president Joan Laporta and vice-president Albert Vicens, along with director Antoni Rovira, represented the club in the French capital where the collaboration agreement with UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, was signed.

Laporta and the Director General of the UNESCO Koichiro Matsuura signed the agreement at 16:10 at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Private chat

The Barça delegation arrived at the UNESCO headquarters at 16:00 and Laporta, Vicens and Rovira had a private chat with Matsuura, before they all walked out to sign the agreement and meet the media.

Barça is "a club with values"

Before putting pen-to-paper, Matsuura spoke about his belief that FC Barcelona is "a club with values". He then explained that the collaboration agreement has many aims and goals: to act against violence, to act against racism and in support of anti-doping and encouraging literacy.

The UNESCO leader stated that another key objective was to see an end to violence in sport and in schools. He believed, therefore, that the whole agreement had no limits.

Laporta then stepped forward to read his speech where he said that the agreement has to be seen to be "a recognition of the work that we are doing to support universal education and to promote the values of citizenship". He then signed his name on the historic document.

An example for the world

The agreement aims to raise public awareness of the role played by education and sport in the development and well-being of children and youth. Educational and anti-doping awareness programmes, as well as a number of activities and initiatives promoting the fight against exclusion, encouraging literacy and education for disadvantaged children and youth, and supporting citizenship education, are included in the partnership.

In this sense, Laporta explained that it had been signed "was an example for other companies and is way of telling the world that we have to solve these problems" and he referred to the many difficulties faced by many children across the planet in their development.