Close sites icon close
Search form

Search for the country site.

Country profile

Country website

FC Barcelona and UNHCR

FC Barcelona and UNHCR

15 May 2009

New Signing: FC Barcelona President Joan Laporta marks the start of a new partnership with UNHCR by handing over a Barça shirt to High Commissioner António Guterres.

An agreement, signed by UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres and Joan Laporta, President of FC Barcelona, will help provide refugee children with necessary life skills through sport. The agreement, signed for an initial three years, signals the beginning of what is expected to be a long term relationship of cooperation between the two institutions.

The main objective of the new partnership is to raise public awareness of the protection needs of refugees and other uprooted people around the world and to promote the role of education and sport in the development and well being of refugees, particularly children. As a first step, UNHCR and FC Barcelona will jointly design a number of education and sports projects which will benefit refugees in Ecuador, Nepal and Rwanda.