The mayor of Igualada, Marc
Castells, has announced today that Barça have made a commitment to play a
benefit match in order to raise money for the
‘Consorci Sociosanitari Igualada (CSSI)’. Therefore, when
circumstances permit, Barça will pay a visit to the Les Comes stadium to face
CF Igualada to help the CSSI, an organisation formed by
the Igualada City Council and the Social and Health Service of
Catalonia and which offers social and health services to older people and those
who are dependent in order to improve their quality of life and the
independence. Helping those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19, the CSSI
offers this service in the areas
of Igualada and Anoia.
The announcement by Mayor
Castells came during his daily press conference on the development of the
coronavirus in one of the areas most affected economically and socially. The
mayor stated that Barça had accepted the request made by the president of CF Igualada,
Francesc Jorba, who was beside him at the press conference.
“CF Igualada, together with FC Barcelona, would like to present to you
this initiative which we greatly appreciate and I hope that it will provide
excitement and make us aware that we are not alone; that there are many people
outside of the Conca d’Òdena who love us and who are looking after
us,” said Castells. He continued: “In moment like this you always find people
who give you support, ideas and a vision and help to being you good news for
when all this is over. Everything that is happening has an end point and as my
grandfather used to say, when it has rained it has stopped
raining.”
Castells explained that
the blaugranes accepted the idea straight away in a telephone call on
Wednesday evening. “Yesterday I had the chance to talk to the president of FC
Barcelona and his first vice president Jordi Cardoner, whose family comes from
the area of Igualada and he told me that we could make
the annoucement in a council meeting at Igualada together
with the mayors form the rest of the area of Conca d’Òdena.”
Francesc Jorba, president
of CF Igualada, gave more details of how the initiative came about. “A few
days ago the sporting committee at Igualada came up with the idea and
they asked me: why don’t we contact Barça to see if they would like to play in
a benefit match to help the health services in Igualada and la Conca?
We sent an e-mail and we quickly got a positive respones and
yesterday president Josep Maria Bartomeu phoned
me. Duing the conversation he put the Club at
our disposition and he was very worried about the situation
in Igualada and la Conca. He said that the game between
CF Igualada and FC Barcelona would be possible to raise money for the
CSSI. We want to thank them for this ray of light in a moment of darkness and
rain. Now we can see the sun coming out as it always does.”
La
Conca d’Òdena, closed
La Conca d’Òdena was closed
off on 12 March and that affects the municipalities of Igualada, Vilanova del
Camí, Santa Margarida de Montbui and Òdena after a strain of the
virus and some 20 positives case were detected by the Catalan Department of
Health.
Six days later on 18
March there was a sharp rise in positives at Igualada Hospital, more than
200 and in Anoia there were 21 victims. The development of
the pandemia has made la Conca d’Òdena ground zero in the
current crisis in Catalonia and the area has one of the highest death rates due
to coronavirus in Europe.
Up until Wednesday 1 April, 98
people have died due to the outbreak at Igualada Hospital and
there some 154 professional heath workers in Anoia who have tested
positive for Covid-19.
Source: fcbarcelona
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