The president of the León Provincial Council, Eduardo Morán, presented today the collaboration agreement with the Ciudad de Ponferrada basketball club (CDP) and the City Council of the capital of Bercia that will allow the creation of a regional basketball league in which they can the Bierzo schoolchildren participate. The objective of this future league, Morán explained, is to pay off a “debt to grassroots sport” in many towns in the region, where the phenomenon of depopulation causes that in some towns there are not enough children to form a team.
In this sense, the provincial institution will assume transfers of the participants from seven schools, four from Bierzo and three from Laciana, to Ponferrada, where the City Council will hand over the Ángel Pestaña pavilion and the Fuentesnuevas pavilion for the dispute of the scheduled meetings. “We cannot allow second-division children in rural areas, with hardly any possibilities to play sports,” reiterated the provincial president.
For her part, the Head of Sports of the Provincial Council, Susana Folla, stressed that the agreement also involves the launch of the promotion campaign ‘El Bierzo is basketball’, which will be developed in all schools in the region, with the objective of promoting healthy habits and team sport.
Along the same lines, the president of the CDP, Óscar García, considered that today is an “important step” for the promotion of sport, since it will allow the school competition to be more affordable for many centers, by unifying its headquarters in Ponferrada . Until now, the schoolchildren of the Bercian capital competed in the provincial league created by the Diputación. García trusted that within two or three years, basketball will return to the towns through this program. The Ponferrada Councilor for Sports, Iván Castrillo, and the CDP youth coordinator, Jorge Fernández, were also present at the press conference.
Bet on sports
On the other hand, Morán pointed out that the provincial institution carries out a “bet on sports” in the budgets for next year, with an increase in the amount destined to City Halls and Neighborhood Councils for the reform and conditioning of municipal sports facilities. Local entities will have at their disposal a budget of two million, advanced the president.
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