When the sports world gathered at the Palacio de Cibeles in Madrid for the Laureus World Sports Awards, the highest honor in athletic philanthropy did not go to a record-breaking sprinter or a continental champion. Instead, the Laureus Sport for Good Award went to Fundación Fútbol Más, an organization whose pitch is not a stadium, but the fractured fabric of refugee camps, disaster-stricken zones, and urban neighborhoods across eleven nations.
Founded in Chile in 2008 by Guillermo Rolando, the organization has quietly engineered a global methodology that treats the ball not merely as an instrument of competition, but as a primary linguistic architecture for human development. Operating across South America, Europe, and Africa—touching more than 40,000 children in Chile alone, managing extensive programs in Mexico, Peru, and Kenya, and recently expanding into Morocco—Fútbol Más builds its operational framework on five non-negotiable core values: respect, joy, responsibility, creativity, and teamwork.
Unlike traditional athletic academies focused strictly on technical execution, scouting metrics, or tactical periodization, the Fútbol Más socio-sports model targets emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and community resilience. As Laureus Ambassador Thiago Alcântara observed following a visit to the program's Madrid center, I understood that football, when it is well understood, goes far beyond the simple game. It becomes a language that allows us to create bonds, to educate, and to give children a sense of belonging.
Thiago Alcântara
Operational Footprint and Crisis Intervention
The machinery of Fútbol Más relies on contextual adaptability. The organization divides its interventions into distinct operational streams: neighborhood integration, school partnerships, migrant mobility support, and natural disaster recovery. When cyclones Eloise and Mozambique displaced communities, or when earthquakes rattled Ecuador and Mexico, the foundation deployed its emergency play methodology to provide immediate psychosocial stabilization for traumatized youth.
In Europe, the framework has adapted to complex migratory landscapes. Since launching operations in France in 2018, initiatives in Paris, Aubervilliers, Grigny, and a refugee center in Ivry-sur-Seine have engaged participants from 14 different nationalities. By 2024, the priority shifted toward systematic methodological transfer, training local European actors to implement socio-sports tools in marginalized urban quarters.
The Moroccan Pilot and Chefchaouen Blueprint
The organization's strategic expansion reached a milestone between July 1 and July 4, 2026, when the mountain city of Chefchaouen hosted the inaugural Festival Fútbol Más. Organized in partnership with the Association of Moroccan Graduates in Spain (ADME), the Municipality of Chefchaouen, and the Agency for the Promotion and Development of the North (APDN), the project served as a live laboratory for the foundation's pedagogical framework.
The pilot followed a precise two-phase tactical chronology:
- Virtual and In-Person Technical Formation (July 1–3): Intensive workshops designed for local football coaches, technical staff, sports monitors, and community association leaders to internalize the socio-sports methodology.
- The Municipal Stadium Grand Tournament (July 4): A practical showcase at the Stade Municipal de Chefchaouen where local youth clubs, schools, and families converted theoretical training into a collaborative community festival.
This structured rollout is designed to establish Chefchaouen as a national reference point for sport-for-development, generating long-term institutional alliances that weave psychosocial support permanently into regional educational and civic frameworks.
The Laureus Validation and Global Reach
Securing the 2026 Laureus Sport for Good Award places Fútbol Más at the absolute peak of global social enterprise, selected by the 69 members of the Laureus World Sports Academy from a shortlist that included prominent initiatives like MindLeaps, Transformación Social TRASO, ASD Gruppo Sportivo Valanga, Rugby for Good, and the King's County Tennis League.
Founder and global CEO Guillermo Rolando emphasized the universal nature of the achievement upon receiving the honor in Madrid: The football is a universal language that speaks to everyone, without distinction of age, race, creed, or social status, and Fútbol Más is proud to diffuse this message.
Guillermo Rolando
As the organization rolls out its 2025 Global Report and continues its partnership integrations—such as collaborating with adidas to place program participants on the pitch during major international fixtures—Fútbol Más demonstrates that the most enduring legacy of sport is not found in trophies lifted, but in human realities permanently transformed.
Sources
These sources formed the evidence pack for this article. Links open the original publisher; inclusion does not imply endorsement.
- fr.futbolmas.org original
- sportanddev.org original
- Atalayar original
- chaineactu.com original
- futbolmas.org original
