Awards go to 20 European organisations supporting disadvantaged children
On 16 May, the Board of Trustees of the UEFA Foundation for Children met in Lyon at the offices of Sport dans la Ville – an organisation that uses sport to help young people to integrate into society – under the stewardship of its chairman, Aleksander Čeferin.
The agenda for that meeting included a number of important items of business, such as the 2018 UEFA Foundation for Children Awards and the approval of the projects to be supported using the proceeds from the recent Match for Solidarity, which took place in Geneva on 21 April and was jointly organised by UEFA and the United Nations.
As regards administrative business, the chairman of The Football Association, Greg Clarke, was voted onto the Board of Trustees, bringing the total number of members to 11. The Board of Trustees also took note of the impending departure of the foundation’s secretary general, Pascal Torres, who will be replaced by Urs Kluser.
2018 UEFA Foundation for Children Awards
In January, UEFA’s 55 member associations were again asked to nominate a charity partner that was involved in activities benefiting children – a repeat of last year’s initiative aimed at placing Europe’s national associations at the heart of the decision-making process as regards these awards. The eligibility criteria for this year’s awards were as follows:
- Nominees had to be based in one of UEFA’s member countries.
- They had to comply with the Ethics Code of the UEFA Foundation for Children.
- They had to be registered with the relevant national authorities and comply with all legal and financial obligations.
- Their activities had to be aimed at helping disadvantaged children.
- Priority would be given to national associations whose charity partners had not received an award in 2017.
Each award-winner would receive a grant of at least €50,000.
A total of 22 national associations submitted nominations, ten of which had not nominated anyone last year. Only two nominees were rejected on account of a failure to satisfy the above criteria. The Board of Trustees decided to divide the total amount of funding available – €1m – equally between the remaining nominees, with the 20 organisations below each receiving a €50,000 grant:
| National association | Recipient organisation |
| Football Federation of Armenia | Grant Life |
| Austrian Football Association | Helga Keil-Bastendorff Stiftung |
| Royal Belgian Football Association | BX Brussels |
| Croatian Football Federation | Pogled Autism Association |
| Cyprus Football Association | Goal in Life |
| Football Association of the Czech Republic | Special Olympics Czech Republic |
| Estonian Football Association | SPIN |
| French Football Federation | Fondaction du Football |
| German Football Association | AMPU KIDS – a project by Ampu Vita e.V. |
| Israel Football Association | The Israel Sport and Education Initiative |
| Football Federation of Kosovo | Kosovar Youth Council |
| Liechtenstein Football Association | Football is More |
| Lithuanian Football Federation | Vilnius Social Club |
| Football Federation of FYR Macedonia | SOS Children’s Village Macedonia |
| Polish Football Association | Amp Futbol Polska |
| Football Association of Ireland | Irish Society for Autism |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina Football Federation | Škola fudbala Respekt |
| Football Association of Slovenia | Debeli Rtič Youth Health and Summer Resort |
| Swedish Football Association | Lennart Johansson Foundation |
| Swiss Football Association | Verein Raumfang |
2018 call for projects
This year, applicants should submit details of their projects between mid-August and mid September. The selection criteria will be set out in the application form.
The next meeting of the Board of Trustees is set to take place on end of 2018 to announce the selected of the new projects.
For high-resolution images relating to this media release, please visit the foundation’s newsroom.