Euroleague Basketball opens One Team collaboration with Projecte Home Catalunya

Barcelona, July 3, 2013. The corporate social responsibility programme One Team added two new features to its ongoing expansion as Euroleague Basketball's own in-house project in Barcelona was unveiled and playing legend Nikola Vujcic was presented as the newest One Team Ambassador at a press conference on Wednesday.

With the support of founding sponsor Turkish Airlines and of 15 Euroleague Basketball clubs who have joined the programme since its launch in February, 2012, One Team seeks to use the power of basketball as a motivator for disadvantaged and at-risk groups in communities across the continent, to impact their lives in a positive way.

Euroleague Basketball announced Wednesday that it has joined directly in that broad effort by starting a local collaboration in Barcelona between its staff members and Projecte Home Catalunya, a national network in Spain that helps recovering substance abusers. As such, Euroleague Basketball becomes the first One Team project participant not based at one of the organization's member clubs.

"We all know the tough situation in Spain now, and we think that Projecte Home Catalunya is doing great work in their field and that the best that Euroleague Basketball can do is work with them," Jordi Bertomeu, President and CEO of Euroleague Basketball, said. "We hope we can make a difference for them, but in the end we are a small part of this effort. The key is when we have personalities like Nikola Vujcic, who was a unique and great player on the court and is just as unique and great off it, collaborating with us. His generosity and availability for important initiatives like One Team is very admirable, and it's thanks to players like him that we can do these things. They are the flag bearers of this project."

Vujcic, who recently rejoined his former club, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, as a manager, will also serve as global ambassador for One Team, lending his expertise as a player engaged in off-court charitable efforts to enhance the aims of the programme across Europe.

"Sportsmen are well known and followed by a lot of people, and I think we have to use our names and reputations to promote projects like this and help communities on a high level," Vujcic said. "The One Team programme is really unique. As a player, I often did charitable work for teams, but this larger effort guided by Euroleague has a very big future. One Team is something really positive that we have to support as clubs and players."

In Barcelona, that has meant giving substance abusers from Projecte Home Catalunya a valuable tool with which to bring the values associated with basketball to their aspirations for recovery.

"For us, it has been a blessing to be able to have people with drug problems trying to reclaim their lives here in Barcelona get the chance to play sports in the One Team program," said Oriol Esculies , director de Projecte Home Catalunya. "Practicing a sport is not only a great alternative to consuming drugs for our participants, but people who have taken drugs need to recover their health, and of course sport helps in that. They want to enjoy their recovery, to get rid of anxiety and so on, and playing basketball does that, too. There is also the benefit of teamwork and similar values that playing basketball gives them. Basketball is perfect for this because it's a universal and popular sport that everyone can play, including the kind of people we are trying to help, women as well as men. One Team is not only interesting and enjoyable for them, but a great learning experience for our staff at Projecte Home Catalunya."