FC Barcelona and the Institut Ramon Llull (IRL) have agreed to renew the partnership agreement that has existed between the two bodies since September 2012 to carry out joint activities to promote the Catalan language and culture abroad. This international promotion takes place through the organisation of various academic and cultural activities connected to Barça football club and Catalan culture, held in universities in other countries where Catalan studies are taught.
The renewal of this agreement was ratified at a meeting of senior figures of both bodies this morning at the Camp Nou stadium. FC Barcelona was represented by its President, Josep Maria Bartomeu, and Vice-President of International and Institutional Relations, Carles Vilarrubí. Attending on behalf of the Institut Ramon Llull was its Director, Manuel Forcano, who was accompanied by the IRL’s General Manager, Josep Marcé.
The representatives of both bodies stated that they were pleased with the results achieved thanks to the four-year agreement signed in September 2012 and that the decision had now been made to renew it until 30 June 2018.
Since the start of the collaboration between the two bodies, this agreement has led to the organisation of a number of seminars abroad concerning Barça and Catalan culture, and the FC Barcelona Vice-president of International and Institutional Relations, Carles Vilarrubí, gave a talk on “Barça, sport, culture and education” at the University of Glasgow (2012), the Sorbonne Nouvelle Paris III and the University of Amsterdam (2013) and the University of Manchester (2014).
Also as a consequence of this accord, FC Barcelona was present at the prestigious Warsaw Book Fair in May this year, where the documentary Josep Suñol, un crit valent (Josep Suñol: A Brave Cry), about the club’s president assassinated in 1936, was screened. In addition, Carles Vilarrubí took part in a round table on football and literature that was introduced by the Director of the IRL, Manuel Forcano, at the book fair. Coinciding with the fair, Barça organised an activity for children at the FCBEscola de Varsòvia soccer academy to underscore the importance of the values of sport and culture.
Carles Vilarrubí, Vice-President of International and Institutional Relations for FC Barcelona, said, “Our relationship with the Institut Ramon Llull began in 2012, when we launched this partnership agreement to promote Catalan Culture abroad. In the years since then, we have held conferences and institutional events that have been widely applauded and which have been highly rated by both bodies. We have, therefore, decided to continue this collaboration to promote Catalan culture and the values of our club, which are inextricably linked to the country and society of Catalonia.”
For his part, Manuel Forcano, Director of the Institut Ramon Llull, declared, “For the IRL, a body devoted to cultural diplomacy, working in partnership with Barça through the “Sport meets Culture” joint action programme is a great opportunity to raise global awareness of the Catalan language and culture in association with a club that has an international presence of the first order and a global communicational capacity”.