The Copa del Rey basketball contributes to the social transformation of Badalona

The celebration in Badalona of the Copa del Rey basketball 2023 that will take place between February 16 and 19, beyond the sporting event that supposes an indirect impact of 30 million euros in the city, according to the ACB, generates a movement parallel of social integration through sport, whose greatest exponent is the Unió Bàsquet Llefià, host of the Endesa Mini Cup, whose socializing project allows all the nationalities that converge in a metropolitan suburb to militate in its ranks.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
13 February 2023 Monday 19:07
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The Copa del Rey basketball contributes to the social transformation of Badalona

The celebration in Badalona of the Copa del Rey basketball 2023 that will take place between February 16 and 19, beyond the sporting event that supposes an indirect impact of 30 million euros in the city, according to the ACB, generates a movement parallel of social integration through sport, whose greatest exponent is the Unió Bàsquet Llefià, host of the Endesa Mini Cup, whose socializing project allows all the nationalities that converge in a metropolitan suburb to militate in its ranks.

Badalona, ​​as host of the Cup 39 years later, flaunts its basketball past, which had been ostracized due to municipal oblivion in recent years and seeks to recover its nickname as the cradle of basketball that it held in the nineties. Before the sporting celebration, the city dusts off the old values ​​of sport and commits to a transformation that also promotes a marked social objective.

In Badalona, ​​during this week more than 30,000 people are expected and for this purpose four fan zones have been distributed in neighborhoods such as Gorg, Llefià, Center and Montigalà, which will import games, activities, workshops, conferences, parties and musical performances for a week related to the world of the basket. All this, praised with a meticulous restoration service. During the Cup, the city's bars and restaurants will extend their hours to guarantee service to visitors.

The city already breathes basketball, and for the Copa del Rey, the municipal government has opted to reform a large part of the forty outdoor courts that are spread throughout the city. In the same way, basketball is present in schools and educational centers.

Precisely, a social project from Badalona has been chosen by Endesa, the sponsor of the Basketball League, as a finalist, one of the stories that stands out for its social impact, its backbone and cohesion work in the social fabric of the neighborhoods through the basketball, it is the Unió Bàsquet Llefià, a neighborhood club that throughout its 35-year history has managed to structure a cohesive movement for which most of the educational centers and schools in the neighborhood of Llefià.

“No one leaves the Llefià club forever” explains Albert Tomàs, president of the Unió Bàsquet. It is not a threat, it is a certainty. All of those who are now managers, coaches or collaborators have previously passed through the ranks of a neighborhood team and have endorsed the values ​​it advocates. "UB Llefià is a big family, everyone can play, no one is marginalized due to their economic or social condition."

"In a complex environment -explains the president- of 90,000 inhabitants, a neighborhood of humble and hard-working people, with a single sports pavilion" the practice of sport is vital "for the transition from child to adult". For this, they devised the Escola de Bàsquet, which arose at the request of a player, Jaume Romera, who withdrew from the courts due to a heart condition. "He said he wanted everyone to have a chance to play basketball, and here we are" with 120 boys and girls at the school and 210 on the competition teams. "We have not waited for people to come to play, we have gone to propose it" explains Tomàs. Nine more centers have joined the initiative, which began at the Arrels-Esperança school "with a great reception from its director, Joan Masó", one of which is in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, due to its proximity.

His only language is basketball. This is how Albert Tomàs explains how boys and girls from Morocco, South America and all over the world understand each other. "They understand each other through sport and speak the same language." Integration occurs not only in children, but also in families, many of which "have met and become friends with each other."

Unfortunately, the economy is a drag for a small and socializing club like UB Llefià. The only contributions come from the partners, who do not always have financial availability. But in addition, the City Council does not help much, since the club must pay an annual rent of 24,000 euros to have the pavilion. However, it gives them a subsidy, like the rest of the entities, but subtracted from the payment of the installation "they leave us about two thousand euros."

However, that the celebration of the cup helps to publicize their activity "for us it is already a lot" assumes Tomàs, who does not lose hope that by making themselves known more resources can arrive. And that the Minicopa del Rey is held in Llefià, is another impulse that "among all of us we must take advantage of so that there is a post-Copa del Rey".

For its part, for the municipal government, celebrating the Copa del Rey "is a great challenge", according to the mayor, Rubén Guijarro, closely linked to the Llefià club, of which he was a player, coach and director. For the first mayor, winning the candidacy to celebrate the 2023 edition has been a milestone in which all the entities of the city have agreed, from the neighborhood to the business, which has made it possible to outbid the candidacies of Malaga or Valencia.

"We want to recover the capital of basketball," insists Guijarro. To this end, he has mobilized an investment of 3.4 million to rehabilitate six pavilions and promote the remodeling of ten outdoor tracks and set the goal of "rehabilitating the 40 outdoor tracks in the city." The mayor is of the opinion that "the Cup should stay in Badalona" to be impregnated with the values ​​that the 3,000 federated players who every week participate in one of the 60 games that are played every week are already familiar with "in which it should once again be the cradle of basketball in Catalonia”.