Barça's new high-profile signing who doesn't play football

BarcelonaOne of Barça's latest signings is a media sensation. But he doesn't play football. This week, the club's foundation premiered its documentary at the Guadalajara International Film Festival. More than a refugeeA work carried out in collaboration with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) with a special narrator, Mexican actor and singer Alfonso Herrera. The documentary tells us how in Uganda, the African country with the largest number of refugees, football helps improve lives. How sport is a space of safety and hope for the nearly two million refugees fleeing cruel wars. I understand why there's more talk about Joan Garcia's signing, but if Barça is special, it's for reasons like this.

Sometimes we boast about being more than a club, especially when the ball doesn't go in. But when we win, some people forget Barça's historical values. Values that are always in danger in a globalized and aggressive world. That's why we must vindicate and value the fact that the club continues to care for its foundation with projects like this documentary, which gives names and surnames to the refugees of Uganda. People who, by wearing the Barça shirt, sometimes regain hope. People who are suffering, especially now that the Trump administration is leading the new policies of cutting humanitarian aid. Barça hasn't done that and has worked with Alfonso Herrera to find a media voice that helps spread the message that football is more than a game, Barça is more than a club, and a refugee is more than a refugee: they're a person.

Barça works on projects like this and the Hope League, the international project in collaboration with the Barça Foundation that, led by people like Oleguer Presas, among others, uses football to rebuild the social fabric and promote coexistence in northern and eastern Syria and Iraqi Kurdistan. A club with values that must be vindicated because they are part of the Barcelona way of life. To deny a supportive Barça is to fail to understand the spirit of this club. To deny a Catalanist Barça is to fail to understand the spirit of this club. Barça is what it is—and it's necessary to reclaim it—thanks to initiatives like this documentary. A great signing, in this case.