Having a look at Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) I was interested to find what a clubs approach towards it is and if clubs do it differently. I found research on 3 clubs in particular that I feel take CSR very seriously and carry it out very well, the 3 being Manchester Utd of England, Barcelona of Spain and Besiktas of Turkey.
Manchester United have become one of the biggest teams in the history of football since the clubs foundation in 1878, but along with winning trophies they have accomplished a lot in its local community and have set up the Manchester United Foundation to contribute to the local community and around the world.
The mission of the clubs CSR is to ‘’use the passion of Manchester United to educate, motivate and inspire young people to build a better life for themselves and improve the communities they live in’’ (Manchester United Foundation). They provide different schemes and programmes that work with people suffering from a disability, school etc. The Man Utd foundation has organized it CSR into three separate section, working with the local community, then the national organizations in the UK and then finally they work with their global partner UNICEF.
Barcelona are one of the most successful and profitable clubs in the world and works hard to confirm the clubs moto ‘‘More than a club’’, FC Barcelona’s mission is to promote ‘’solidarity, cultural and educational activities to enable the consolidation of the clubs commitment to being More than a club’’ (FC Barcelona foundation). The club build study centres, training educators and its own projects to promote education, they provide funding for research in the field of heart disease and muscle tendon pathologies. Barcelona also have launched charity programs with three agencies; UNICEF, UNESCO and UNCHER. The club carry out projects to benefit children all around the world not just in Catalonia or Spain.
Besiktas were the first Turkish sports club and along with having great success on the field with many league titles and other achievements, the club has success off the field by giving back to its community. Besiktas do CSR slightly differently than Man Utd and Barcelona as they don’t have a separate foundation, the mission of the club is to train well educated and well behaved athletes and managers to contribute to the success of the national team. So it could be debated that the CSR model of Besiktas is a lot more selfish than clubs like Man Utd and Bracelona. They do address social issues by giving help for education to young people and raising awareness for health but don’t have any foundation or even a department for CSR. Of course they don’t have the financial muscle and backing of other clubs but still, the club could look to help the countries less fortunate parts rather than helping the development of the future of the club and national team’s success on the field.
So from looking at these 3 clubs and their approach to CSR you can see they all make a difference to the people they are helping but to whom they are making a difference to changes and so each club has a slightly different view or understanding of CSR. One thing is for sure is that all clubs are aware that they use CSR to benefit the club long term.
speak your sport now! 