Speech by Laurent Thieule, President of Sport and Citizenship, at ...

Dear Friends, 

Siège : 

17 Place Bilange - 49400 - Saumur - France 

Tel : (00 33) 2 41 38 51 26 

GSM : (00 33) 6 31 50 69 12 

UEFA SEMINAR 

KISS Corporate Social Responsibility Workshop 

SARAJEVO, 4 October 2012-09-26 

LAURENT THIEULE 

PRESIDENT OF SPORT AND CITIZENSHIP 

It's a great honor for Sport and Citizenship, the European think tank on sport, and it's 

President, to be invited to share this KISS seminar on Corporate Social Responsibility 

organized by UEFA and in particular by its Football and Social Responsibility 

directorate. 

First of all I would like to thank UEFA very warmly , its President Michel Platini, William 

Gaillard our main interlocutor, and today Paul Gasser, for their support since the very 

beginning of Sport and Citizenship's adventure and for their confidence and 

cooperation. Thanks a lot! 

Thank you for inviting me to explain why Sport and Citizenship, with its 200 European 

experts on sport and societal issues, is convinced that the European football 

organization is at a turning point, and that it's time to act in the social fields. 

I am really glad that you are now more familiar with social responsibility, thanks to the 

intervention of Doctor Hopkins. It is indeed complementary to my speech. Scientific 

truth belongs to the university world. 

I am indeed standing before you today and embody Sport and Citizenship’s objectives: 

being a link between experts and scientists and high-level decision-makers. It means one 

thing: understanding the former, and convincing the latter. 

It is a task that I am passionate about and that I have been committed to for a long time. 

This is one of those personal investments that one could be proud of. How to best set 

examples in sport than being a volunteer yourself? After all, I am more a volunteer in the 

field of sport, than the President of a think tank. 

Sport and Citizenship is already 5 years old, and has been committed since its very 

beginning to the launch of a European civic dialogue in the field of sport, thanks to 

multidisciplinary and transverse reflections aiming at putting European sport 

stakeholders in relation with others. 

Sport stakeholders in general, and football in particular. 

Football establishes strong connections between citizens, even if they do not share the 

same language. I am the president of a football club in Brussels where we welcome 300 

kids from 40 different nationalities, and things work thanks to the use of one single 

language: football! 

SPORT ET CITOYENNETE 

Courriel : contacts@sportetcitoyennete.com 

www.sportetcitoyennete.com 

Bureaux de représentations : 

Chez Kurt Salmon - 159 avenue Charles de Gaulle - 92527 Neuilly sur Seine France 

Chez KEA - 51, Rue du Trône 1050 Bruxelles - Belgique

One of my coaches always says: "I don’t do integration, I just do football" 

If you have people in your club with a passion for football, then youngsters can integrate. 

If you have categorical ideas about integration, then you won’t succeed as much as the 

one who loves football. 

But, basically football allows for socializing in an equal space, which contributes to 

making sport an incredible means for cultural exchange. 

We strongly believe in it. 

Dear friends, 

What observation can we make about football today? 

How do we promote the evolution of football while taking into account societal 

interests? 

First: the facts. 

Today, the overwhelming image of football is that of a simple economic activity. It is a 

market where owners of professional clubs and agents exchange assets, in this case, 

players. 

Under the principle of performance there is a confusing mix of sport practices and 

business practices. Moreover, football is seen as belonging to the financial sphere and as 

a matter of speculation. 

The image of football is mainly conveyed by professional stars that are not spared by the 

global crisis of values. 

At the same time, young players in amateur clubs often suffer from the failures of 

society. These include broken homes, poor schooling and religions that don't support 

them morally speaking, so that they have lost any point of reference for values. 

Their new points of reference are in fact, to a certain extent, the excesses of professional 

football. They receive an extra-terrestrial image of their idols that are as disoriented as 

the fans themselves. 

Football has a social responsibility in this regard. 

But you know all of that better than me. You are better placed than anybody to meet the 

concerns of amateur football, which is confronted daily by a lack of volunteers, a lack of 

facilities, a lack of referees, of coaches, of shoes, balls….and money. 

So, how do we convince the managers of these thousands of clubs to deliver and invest 

in Social Responsibility? How do we explain to them where to find the balance between 

social integration and the economic sustainability of the club? 

In fact most of them already do it. They deliver Social Responsibility. Their club is much 

more than football. 

But, how do we support this movement? That's my second point. 

Our think tank, Sport and Citizenship, defined the characteristics of Social Responsibility 

as follows: 

Siège : 


Tel : (00 33) 2 41 38 51 26 

GSM : (00 33) 6 31 50 69 12 







Accompanying young players in their education: for some youngsters who do 

not meet basic academic standards, sport can be a more efficient language to 

educate them. This education comprises, among others: 

o Citizenship and European citizenship awareness: sport is the human 

activity that touches citizens the most: 40% of Europeans practice sport at 

least once a week; there are 700.00 sporting associations and more than 

35 million volunteers involved in sport! It provides a tremendous target 

audience for active citizenship 

Environment awareness through mega sporting events: indeed, 48% of 

Europeans who practice sport do it in the outdoors (parks, forest, nature) A 

strong communication power: 64% of European citizens agree that sport is an 

important solution to major challenges of promoting integration and 

intercultural dialogue 

There is another point of consensus: 78% of European citizens see sport as a 

way to fight obesity and to improve health. In the meantime the opportunity 

and necessity to move in modern life has declined, leading to an epidemic of 

physical inactivity (which leads every year to an incredible 1 million deaths in 

Europe, according to the WHO), as underlined by the recent campaign 

"Designed to move" launched by Nike and supported by our think tank. 

A channel for social connections, social cohesion and social inclusion whereby 

there are a myriad of successful examples: the Paralympics, integration of 

women in sport; the Homeless World Cup; 

I would insist on this last point and shall complete it by two other thoughts. 

Social inclusion. 

Amateur football clubs can provide structuring values, in that it is fixed in time and 

space for young players, and based on living together, learning about liberty and 

discipline, within a framework and with a common project. 

We all know that integration does not necessarily mean high level success. And amazing 

results are evident in many of your countries. However with some limits. 

Three years ago Sport and Citizenship provided/released a survey on "The integration 

of immigrants through sport". 

If one believes the principal arguments, sport should be an excellent channel for 

integration for populations of "migrant backgrounds" or for ethnic minorities. In football 

we constantly see in the media examples of success stories of champions who have 

foreign origins. 

But this myth is subjected to the realities of the field. 

In amateur sports a lot of immigrants do not participate in physical or sporting activity 

partly due to cultural reasons, or for reasons of social affiliation. Sociologists observe the 

phenomena of exclusion, racism and community withdrawal within sport (Ethnic clubs). 

Siège : 


Tel : (00 33) 2 41 38 51 26 

GSM : (00 33) 6 31 50 69 12 







The sporting field is often an area where ethnic discrimination takes place. 

My second point will be local and will concern the essential partnership between 

amateur club and local authorities. 

In many countries devolution of powers from the national government to local and 

regional authorities come with the decrease –or the absence - of funding from these 

same central budgets to sport associations and clubs. 

Amateur clubs naturally find a more direct partnership with their municipalities. But for 

those who practice sport, 75% of Europeans are satisfied with the way local authorities 

offer sport locally. 

The wrong way to tackle the partnership is to consider the city as the main sponsor of 

the club. Mayors and municipal councils prefer to deal with the social responsibility 

brought about by the club. It's a language that politicians can understand (inclusion, 

social cohesion; communication power, networking, education, health). This movement 

towards more social responsibility can also come from your instincts. 

My last suggestion will be pro-European. 

In Article 165 of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union promotes the question of sport, 

taking into account voluntary activity structures. This commitment was followed, last 

year by the adoption of a specific program dedicated to grassroots sports activities 

funded by the European Commission for an amount of 236 million euros over the period 

2014-2020. 

The last European year was dedicated to Volunteering and 2103 will be the European 

Year for Citizens. 

How can football be part of this European project? 

Active citizenship does not exist at a European level and herein lies the major European 

crisis: the crisis of a European public spirit. Europe has been built through market 

mechanisms. It hasn't taken account of how much a nation needs spiritual and cultural 

"glue", shared values and common projects. This is also active citizenship. What strikes 

us nowadays is this lack of common projects. Talk with each other and you will realize 

that you do not share the same vision of what you want Europe to be in the future. It is a 

serious issue. We have not given enough attention to this issue of a common citizenship, 

of the policy to be implemented so that people will be not only European consumers, not 

only citizens of their Nation, but European citizens intended in the full meaning of the 

term. The small elements which already exist are student's exchanges…or maybe the 

Champions League!...but they are far from being enough. There will not be any Europe if 

we cannot do this. 

To our mind we should give back to sport, and football in particular, it's place at the 

heart of young Europeans' development because they have a major social and 

educational role in society. We should encourage the development of personal values 

that we champion at the European level, which are civic values. 

I can tell you that this is the project which underlies the commitment of the European 

Institutions and the promotion of sport in the Treaty of Lisbon. Dear friends, dear 

representatives from National Associations and Federations, 

- because you are key actors at the head of one of the most tremendous network of 

millions of volunteers 

Siège : 


Tel : (00 33) 2 41 38 51 26 

GSM : (00 33) 6 31 50 69 12 







- because you are powerful decision makers at the heart of football governance 

- Because you are keen to endorse the statement “investment in the life of the city” 

and because you support changing things in the most popular and socially 

impacting sport in the world. 

We can assume that: 

- you become the guides of the future of the children of Europe, 

- You are now convinced that it is of utmost importance not to underestimate and 

underutilize sport, and football in particular, because of its societal impact and 

power. 

- you will assume the responsibility of ensuring social cohesion 

- And you can be at the forefront to facilitate the emergence of a European 

citizenship. 

Not less. 

Siège : 


Tel : (00 33) 2 41 38 51 26 

GSM : (00 33) 6 31 50 69 12

Speech by Laurent Thieule, President of Sport and Citizenship, at ...

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