New Membership Agreement with SL Benfica

New Membership Agreement with SL Benfica

The European Football for Development Network is glad to announce that a new membership agreement has been found with one of the most successful clubs in the world, SL Benfica.

Sport Lisboa e Benfica, or SL Benfica, is a Portuguese sports club based in Lisbon, Portugal. It is best known for the professional football team playing in the Liga NOS, the top flight of Portuguese football. Benfica are the current Portuguese champions, having won three consecutive league titles.

Founded in 1904, Benfica is one of the “Big Three” clubs in Portugal that have never been relegated from the Liga. The team is nicknamed Águias (Eagles) for the symbol atop the club’s crest, and Encarnados (Reds) for the shirt colour. Since 2003, their home ground has been the Estádio da Luz, which replaced the original one. Benfica is the most supported Portuguese club, with an estimated fan base of 14 million supporters worldwide, and the European club with the highest percentage of supporters in its own country. By August 2015, it had 156,916 paying members. The club’s official anthem, “Ser Benfiquista”, refers to its supporters who are called Benfiquistas.

SL Benfica is the most successful Portuguese club in terms of both domestic (76) and overall titles (78) and is the only one to have won all national competitions. They have won a record 35 Primeira Liga titles, a record 25 Taça de Portugal (10 doubles), a record 7 Taça da Liga (one treble). Currently, Benfica is ranked eighth in the UEFA club coefficient rankings – the best position of a Portuguese club – and has the second most participations in the European Cup/UEFA Champions League (36), after Real Madrid.

What about SL Benfica’s CSR strategy?

Fundação Benfica (Benfica Foundation) is a non-profit organization, created on the 27th of January of 2009, recognized as the first foundation to be created within a Portuguese football club, Sport Lisboa e Benfica, embodying the Club´s own social awareness.

The mission is to conceptualize, plan and implement projects dealing with social, educational, environmental and health issues as a way to contribute to the quality of life of the human being, in particular of children and young adults in a social risk situation, by also promoting inclusive sports.

Since 2009 the foundation has already reached over 25.000 beneficiaries in our different projects, such as the “Para ti Se não faltares!” that aims to tackle school dropout rates and improve the overall school results or the KidFun project that promotes the knowledge and integration of important values like respect and responsibility in young people’s lives.

It also acts as fundraisers for humanitarian aid: the 7th Match Against Poverty (2010) in partnership with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) which helped the population of Haiti, following the environmental catastrophe of the earthquake in 2010; and the Act Against Hunger (2012) in partnership with The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Fundação Luís Figo.