Catalonia, thanks to its entrepreneurial spirit, has achieved extraordinary international recognition in bioscience, digital innovation, sport, culture, gastronomy and health. These milestones have been reached thanks to the drive of its regions and the city of Barcelona which, despite not having the advantages granted by being the capital of the State, has managed to be at the top of the rankings, competing with the big capitals European.
This leadership is the result, on the one hand, of public-private collaboration, of the complicity between public administrations, private companies and organized civil society and, on the other hand, of the proven ability to organize large projects of high logistical and technological complexity. . Today Barcelona and Catalonia are, throughout the world, synonymous with rigor and good organization. And a third factor has also been, and must continue to be, the determination to capture major events that constitute a strategic economic boost. Quite simply, without the 1992 Olympic Games we would not be the cosmopolitan city that we are and without the Mobile World Congress we would not be the technological innovation hub that we are today.
The RACC, which, since its origins now 117 years ago, has organized the most important sports competitions in the motor world in our country, has always believed in sport as an instrument of transformation and progress. The F-1 Grand Prix in Pedralbes from 1951 to 1954 run by the Penya Rhin and, from 1969, organized by the RACC on Montjuïc, on the “magic mountain”, are a test.
The Montjuïc relay was yet another example of this public-private collaboration, thanks to the determination of Sebastià Salvadó and Josep Lluís Vilaseca. In 1976 the RACC bought some land in Caldes de Malavella to build the new circuit. As the initial lack of political will prevented the project from moving forward, in 1987 the club acquired the land in Montmeló that since 1991 has housed what is today the most important sports infrastructure in the country. As fate would have it, in 1992 the land purchased by the RACC in Caldes was used to launch a new project with the European Golf Players Association: the PGA Golf de Catalunya, a course of the highest quality and very well connected.
Now, after winning the 2024 America's Cup, we can host the Ryder Cup, the most important biennial tournament in the world of golf. This growing sport already has more than 300,000 federated athletes throughout the State and more than 60 million worldwide. The last Ryder Cup held in Europe, in 2018 in Paris, had 270,000 live viewers, 920 accredited international journalists, 620 million television audience households and generated a great economic impact. And that is what would happen in Girona lands, where a very high economic repercussion could be achieved that, moreover, would continue for years.
Like the Olympic Games, F-1, the Mobile World Congress or, next year, the America's Cup, today the Ryder Cup offers us a historic opportunity to continue growing.
Now is not the time to fly like poultry if we have already shown that we can fly like eagles. Go ahead.
Yes to the Ryder Cup in Catalonia.
