Barcelona's a club that values giving back

On the field, Barcelona plays with a ruthless beauty that is the envy of the soccer world. Off the field, the Catalan club has an enviable social conscience that extends well beyond its home. That benevolence was on display Saturday night at the Rose Bowl when Barcelona played the first of three matches on its tour of the West Coast.

As Barca and the Los Angeles Galaxy took the field before more than 90,000 fans in Pasadena, Calif., the Barcelona players were wearing a new warm-up top that heralded the club's commitment to a new effort it had joined to eradicate malaria in Africa — United Against Malaria.

"For Barca, our motto for 110 years has been 'More Than a Club,' " Marta Segu, the executive director of the club's foundation, said in a telephone interview. "The club has always defended human rights against dictatorship and promoted the Catalan language. This time we said, OK, we have a responsibility with society around the world."

Barcelona, through an association with the United Nations, which it pays more than $1 million a year to wear the UNICEF logo on its jerseys, and a nonprofit organization called Malaria No More, has enlisted international corporations, nongovernmental organizations, Major League Soccer's MLS Works charity and some of the world's highest-profile players in a campaign against malaria.

The disease, which is spread by mosquitoes, kills more than 3,000 people a day, said Scott Case, the chief executive of Malaria No More and a co-founder of Priceline.com. The effort, ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, is seeking to raise money and awareness to distribute about 150 million mosquito nets, which cost $10 each. More than 100 million nets have already been distributed, but Case said more than 600 million people live in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease was prevalent.

Case said he was astonished to discover that Barcelona, the defending champions of La Liga, the Spanish Cup and the European Champions League, was a true club. It is owned by paying members, and part of the club's model promulgated by its president, Joan Laporta, is social change.

"I think of them as the oldest social enterprise on the planet," Case said. "It's a little like sport is almost secondary. I've never seen anything like it. They haven't gotten the credit they deserve internationally. And now, when I think of Barcelona, I think of creative capitalism."

Barcelona's tour continues in Seattle with a game against the MLS Sounders today at Qwest Field and concludes against Chivas Guadalajara of Mexico at Candlestick Park in San Francisco on Sunday.