Passion, Purpose, Pandemic

Martí Madorell, Catalonia, Spain

Martí Madorell plays for Associació Esportiva Ramassà, an amateur football club based in Franqueses del Vallès in Barcelona, Spain. The men’s team plays in the Catalan fourth division. The club is also an NGO with a broader social purpose to use sport as a tool for social change. 

The club are ambassadors for the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a member of the African Youth Initiative Network (AYINET). A.E Ramassà has been organising cooperative projects for the last 6 years in Ethiopia, Benin, Uganda, Cameroon, Madagascar and Ivory Coast. Martí’s story captured life with the club before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns.

Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your football life?

My name is Martí, I am 27 years old and I currently live in Barcelona. I played football from the age of 8. I started playing indoor soccer on my school team for two years, and then I started playing for the team in my hometown at the time, Caldes de Montbui.

I have played football in different teams until this year, but due to the pandemic the amateur competitions have stopped. I currently play for A.E. Ramassà, an unusual club that has a top social mission, despite being a member of the bottom amateur league.

What did you try to show with the photos? Was there any wider meaning with the photos?

In all the photographs I tried to represent the unity of the team. The thing that makes A.E. Ramassà special is that we are all a family, we do not accept disapproval or destructive criticism. We all always try to row in the same direction, and when there is a conflict, we resolve it as friends with dialogue and try to reach agreements that satisfy everyone. We have a great social life off the field, we try to make personal ties a complement to our individual quality.

A photo was taken at the municipal football field of Llerona, it was the official photo of the team for the 2019-2020 season. This season we were league leaders for half a season, until the pandemic stopped the league. The entire A.E. Ramassà team appears, along with the Board (in white T-shirts). At the time the team photo represented excitement for the start of a new season, commitment, dedication, togetherness, and expectations of being able to compete until the end.

What is your favourite photo?

The team sitting down at the municipal football field of the Hostalets de Balenya is my favourite. It was the first game after the lockdown in Spain, which officially lasted 2 weeks, but unofficially it was 3 months.  It was a very important match for us, because psychologically, after being locked up at home for 3 months without social contact beyond those who live with us, we were all eager to be able to live the life that was normal 6 months ago. It looked like a science fiction movie. It represents the happiness of being able to do what we like again after going through one of the worst times of our lives (home confinement due to Covid, where we all lost someone close or known to us).

Are there any good stories connected with the people or teams you photographed?

There are real friendships, there are players who have been friends since childhood. Said (Tino) has a story of overcoming challenges, effort, fortune and friendship. He is an example to follow for all of us. Crossing the Mediterranean from Sierra Leone 2 years ago, he arrived in the summer of 2019. He is a clear example of how football helps integrate someone into a new country, make friends and leave behind the ghosts of their story. His is definitely a sad story with a happy ending. I am grateful to football for showing me first-hand stories like his, which normally seem to be just TV fiction.

Why is football so important for Spain / Catalonia and its people?

For many people football is more than a sport, it is a way of life. I can't speak for other people, but I'll tell you why it's important to me.

I never had a chance to be a professional footballer. Since I was little, I never stood out, maybe because of how bad I was! What football (as well as other sports) brings to people who are not professionals are values ​​that we apply every day in our professions, with our friends or with our families. In my case, and in general in Catalan and Spanish society, football gives us the ability to learn to overcome adverse situations. It gives us the opportunity to see how we can all move in the same direction. With work and sacrifice many goals are achieved, but without work, without sacrifice, without commitment and without believing in the teammates you have by your side, you will never be able to get very far.

I think that our generation is a frustrated generation. We are very prepared generation, culturally and with high technical qualifications, but at the same time we have to live in times of uncertainty, where we have low prospects for the future. This combination can cause frustration in many of us, and sport in general helps us cope with the social pressure we are subjected to on a daily basis.

What role does football play in Spanish / Catalan society?

I think football is a perfect tool for social transformation, education, and totally necessary in aspects of people's health, both physical and mental.

We are an amateur team, so we have to give some earnings towards team maintenance. During the "festivals" of the Les Franqueses (our city), we create a bar in the zone where the concerts were. We sell burgers and beer with the objective to earn some money for the maintenance of the team, which includes the referee costs and playing licences. Here in Spain, we often celebrate festivals in cities and towns with concerts and cultural activities.

What does football mean to you?

Personally, at the age of 27, football has been a way for me to escape from my day-to-day life. I am a Civil Engineer. My profession and my studies have subjected me to an exhausting, stressful way of life, where we are subjected to a lot of pressure. Being able to go to training allows me to forget all the problems for a few hours, it allows me to be happy, to be focused on doing what I like to do with teammates that I consider friends. I think this is the true meaning of football in my life. In fact, I am convinced of this. I have realized this during this time that I have lived without being able to play football due to the pandemic.

What is the future for Spanish / Catalan football?

I think that the future of Catalan football has to go through a social transformation (speaking about amateur levels, were most people play). I think it has to be seen as a sport from which to learn how to live with people different from us, to meet people that we might never know outside of football. I have a very sociological point of view of football, but I think that people who play football just to compete or to earn a lot of money are losing what is really beautiful about this sport, which is its simplicity, its humility, and its great social reach. I think it's the only place where really distant social groups coexist. I think it is where we stop seeing ourselves with stigmas and see ourselves as equal people, as people with a common goal, which is to enjoy sports together.

What role does A.E. Ramassà play in the community and with communities around the world?

I would like to invite you, when the epidemiological conditions allow us to resume our projects, to see it for yourself. Come to one of our solidarity trips to see it with your own eyes!

I really believe that the people of the so-called "first world" have a lifelong debt to the people of the so-called "third world." We overexploit their countries, we have for centuries plundered their resources by enslaving their inhabitants to work for our well-being. At first it was with plantations, slaves and colonies, now we plunder their mines, we create civil wars so that they cannot prosper, and we take the resources from their waters. 

Then when these people who have nothing in their country come to ours to try to have a dignified life, we call them thieves, criminals, lock them up in detention centres or return them to their country as if they were a defective product. I think we have a debt to those people, and A.E. Ramassà is dedicated to improving the conditions of some of those people. You may never be able to change the world, but what I can assure you is that it changes the world for some people. Mine has changed; I assure you.