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With the refugee crisis taking Europe and the world by storm in the past few months and few EU countries closing their borders to refugees, Portuguese Primeira Liga club FC Porto have requested all 32 clubs in the Champions League to do their bit. The club have asked all participants to donate a percentage of all ticket sales from the first two group stage Champions League encounters.
Porto President Jorge Nuno Pinto addressed a letter to UEFA President Michel Platini which was published on the club’s official website. The letter asked the clubs to donate €1 from each ticket sold to help the migrants who were trying to get into Europe.
‘Play for the migrants’: Porto
The letter sent to Platini reads as follows.
The football family has a long tradition in solidarity and social responsibility, so it is impossible to close our eyes to the drama of the migrants and refugees that are trying to enter in the European soil
FC Porto, through UEFA would like to invite the 31 clubs currently in the Group Stage of the Champions League to put their efforts together and donate one euro per ticket sold for the first two match days. This would allow each club to have one home match to gather the donation. FC Porto will assume this initiative on the 29th September, against Chelsea FC.
UEFA has a prolific tradition in social responsibility, highlighted in UCL campaigns like the "No to Racism" battle. The situation with the migrants also requires a strong movement of the society and, of course, football cannot be apart from it.
The forthcoming campaign of the UEFA Champions League can be even more successful if we put our efforts together. Let's play for the migrants!
Porto follows in Bundesliga’s footsteps
Porto are not the first club to do something to help the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war-torn countries and regions with extreme poverty. Germany’s Bundesliga has seen both the fans and the clubs come out in support of the refugees in the past week.
The stadiums of Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich saw fans holding up banners in support of the refugees with messages such as “Refugees Welcome”. Bayern themselves had announced plans to donate €1 million to care for refugees and also hosting training camps for young migrant children.
Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge had said: “We at FC Bayern consider it our socio-political responsibility to help displaced and needy children, women and men, supporting and assisting them in Germany.”
Translation: "Stirring up hatred against penniless Greeks and refugees. The problem's called racism. Racism out of the heads."
