Barcelona FC joins campaign to quit smoking

FC Barcelona will allow its players and assign its communication channels to a European campaign that has been jointly organized with the European Commission to try and convince millions of European Barca fans to quit smoking.

FC Barcelona president, Sandro Rosell, and the European Commissioner for Health, John Dalli, launched the campaign in Brussels today entitled: “Quit Smoking with Barça” (Quit smoking with the club). Rosell said after the presentation that “participating in such initiatives is part of our DNA because when we educate players in the Masia, (Barca’s youth academy) one of the most important subjects is health and we teach them not to smoke”.

The initiative, which uses the weight of a previous campaign organized by the European Commission: “ex smokers are unstoppable” is geared towards young people and aims to help the 28 million smokers aged between 25 and 34 years of age who are part of a group that annually suffers 700,000 preventable deaths – all related to smoking.

The first part of the campaign will feature Barca stars Xavi Hernandez, Carles Puyol, Andres Iniesta and Victor Valdes in a video, which will be distributed on the Internet, where they offer support to those who want to quit smoking.

FC Barcelona has been a pioneer in adopting a policy of a smoke-free space at the Camp Nou in order to prevent the young ones from suffering the effects of cigarettes whilst watching the Catalan side. Pleased that the European Commission has counted on the Catalan club for this initiative, Sandro Rosell explained that the club will make players from Barca’s first team available for the campaign to participate in anti-smoking publicity spots, provided that its sports calendar permits.

This is great news for Barcelona and a real incentive for the fans to give up smoking. We hope the campaign is a great success.