This past weekend, my team, FC Barcelona, won La Liga, Spain's top-flight football league for the second year in a row. This is the story of what happened after.
The city has a population of about 1.8 million in Barcelona proper. The outlying areas, including the horribly named suburb of Badalona, bring the total to around 4 million. What you see in the picture is a few thousand of the 1.5 million people who flooded the streets to celebrate along Ronaldinho and co. for the victory parade.
North American, or even other European cities, have nothing close to this level of public demonstration in relation to sports. The Pittsburgh (pop. 2.25 million) Steelers drew a measley 225,000 when they won the Super Bowl. When Chelsea won the English Premier League, the biggest soccer league in the world, the London (pop. 7.1 million) club only drew 200,000.
It's no secret why the city embraces the team: it's a perfect reflection of the culture of the region. It takes the industry and work ethic of local talent (Catalan players like Xavi, Puyol, Oleguer) and imports style and flair (Brazil's Ronaldinho, Portugal's Deco, Cameroon's Eto'o) in ample amounts. It'd be the equivalent of the Leafs reflecting the ethnic composition of Toronto. With apologies to Grant Fuhr (the only non-white Leaf, I think), that ain't happening anytime soon.
But it's not just their absurdly talented football team, nor the stylish sophistication that oozes from every edificio, plaza and calle that makes Barcelona my favourite city in the world. In the city of Gaudí, Picasso, Miró, even Chris Columbus, cosmopolitanism is the word. For a globalization junkie like me, the place is pure fishscale.
And finally, what inspired me to write this post, was this article from Reuters. Seems that my fears of Barcelona acquiring a commerical jersey sponsor (only one other team in Europe has an ad-free uniform) were misplaced.
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MADRID (Reuters) - Spanish champions Barcelona have shelved plans to seek commercial sponsorship for their team shirts and have decided instead to use the club's name and resources to finance humanitarian projects.
Barca president Joan Laporta said on Tuesday that the club's board had agreed to donate 0.7 percent of annual income starting from the 2006/07 season to the United Nations as a contribution to the organisation's Millennium Development Goals campaign.
"This is the biggest (sporting) initiative to raise awareness of poverty the world has seen," said Laporta.
"Barcelona will become the first sporting institution to establish an alliance of this order with an institution like the UN in order to fight against poverty and injustice in the world.
"The growth in the club's income has allowed us to take a decision of this type," he added.
Barcelona, whose motto in Catalan is "mes que un club" (more than just a club) predict that income for the present season will reach some 240 million euros (164 million pounds).
HUMANITARIAN CAUSES
The UN's Millennium campaign aims to reduce extreme poverty, hunger and infant mortality, achieving universal primary education and promoting sexual equality.
European Union nations have already agreed to a timetable for gradually bringing their annual aid contributions up to 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product, or annual income.
Laporta confirmed that Barcelona's famous scarlet and blue shirts would not be sponsored by a commercial brand but could be used instead to promote humanitarian causes.
"We are planning on using the shirts to carry a humanitarian message as part of our plans to become more than a club in the rest of the world," he said.
Barca won their second league title in a row last week and meet Arsenal in the Champions League final in Paris on May 17.
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