FC Barcelona Foundation celebrates 30th anniversary with new website

The FC Barcelona Foundation came into being on 18 July 1994. Over the course of its 30-year existence, it has established itself as a leader among elite global football club foundations, engaging in projects in both Catalonia and around the world. 

In its early years, the Foundation focused on cultural and sporting projects. However, that all changed in 2004, during Joan Laporta’s first term as club president, when the Foundation radically changed direction to become the soul of Barça and fulfil the club’s commitment to society and to improving the lives of its most vulnerable boys and girls, both locally and around the world. The following year saw FC Barcelona sign up to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and commit to setting aside 0.7% of its revenue to the Foundation, thereby providing a coherent framework for the new social and solidarity-oriented direction it was taking. 

On 7 September 2006, the Foundation and the club signed a historic agreement with UNICEF at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, as a result of which the Barça shirt would have a sponsor for the first time in its history. This was no ordinary sponsorship deal, however, with the club agreeing to wear the logo of UNICEF, a UN agency that defends children’s rights worldwide, and to make an annual donation of EUR 1.5m to social and humanitarian projects. 

Sixteen years later, on 16 June 2022, FC Barcelona and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) signed an historic agreement in Geneva that led to the club’s football first teams wearing the UNHCR logo on their jerseys in support of refugees and the displaced. The aim of this partnership was to raise awareness among football fans around the world of the realities faced by refugees. The FC Barcelona Foundation also partners with UNHCR to give financial and technical support to projects improving the lives of child and young refugees. These projects focus on education, health and equal opportunities, and in particular on gender equality and diversity in countries such as Uganda, Colombia, El Salvador, Turkey and Malaysia. 

A new website

To mark this anniversary, the FC Barcelona Foundation is today launching a new website, a platform of the highest quality for providing information on and raising awareness of the Foundation’s activities, while offering complete transparency and full accessibility.  

This new website features the latest news on the Foundation, videos on various projects implemented in Catalonia and worldwide, and reports and detailed information on all the programmes and activities it organises. The website is also tailored to and identifies with the club’s new corporate strategy. 

Joan Laporta, president of FC Barcelona and the Foundation

“These 30 years of existence have shown just how steadfast Barça’s social commitment is through its Foundation. No other sports club in the world has an entity with the power and ability to carry out specific and effective projects and programmes aimed at the most vulnerable children and young people in our society.

“The FC Barcelona Foundation projects Barça’s social commitment in Catalonia and throughout the world through a professional team of people that is more than equipped to deal with new challenges. That is why Barça is ‘Más que un Club’ (‘More than a club’)”.  

Dr Marta Segú, general manager of the FC Barcelona Foundation

“The FC Barcelona Foundation uses sport as a force for social change, and we are aware of the tremendously important role we play as representatives of this great club. 

“Barça is an amazingly strong club with a very high international profile. When we act on behalf of Barça we are able to achieve what no one else can thanks to the power of being ‘Más que un Club’ and the magic of sport.”