Date and Time
May 7, 2007
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM

Availability
Open to the public
No RSVP required

Speaker
Joan Laporta - President, Futbol Club Barcelona

"More than a Club in the World" has long been the slogan of the largest and perhaps greatest soccer club in the world. FC Barcelona was one of the first soccer clubs to be founded in Spain. It became a haven for Catalan sentiment when Catalan self-government and Catalan culture were proscribed during the dictatorship. It has since become a global enterprise with global commitments, while continuing to identify Europe's largest and most developed non-state culture.

About the Speaker

Joan Laporta is the president of Football Club Barcelona. He has a law degree from the University of Barcelona. He specializes in civil and trading law, and has his own firm, Laporta & Arbós Advocats Associats.

Mr. Laporta became president of FC Barcelona on June 15, 2003 and won a second presidential term in summer 2006. Under his leadership, the club has striven to promote the values that have traditionally been associated with Barça: Catalan nationalism, civilian duty, and universality. FC Barcelona has since become a club with an enormous public resonance. Their recent partnership with UNICEF is a statement of the club's continuing efforts to be at the forefront of solidarity projects with a global reach.

Sponsored by the Iberian Studies Program, Forum on Contemporary Europe, the Office of the Provost, Department of Athletics, and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies