GIRONAThis Saturday, Girona receives the visit of Cadiz (2 p.m., DAZN). Can you imagine being able to go there with your pet? The Girona football club, the first in the world pet friendly –associated with Gosbi, the food and care brand for companion animals, which is also its main sponsor–, it has been considered that dogs and other pets can enter some of the matches in Montilivi. They wish it would be a reality sooner rather than later, but is it really possible?
The answer is negative. “It wouldn’t be good for the dog or the fan. To be pet friendly it does not mean that dogs must enter the stadium, but it is fair to think about it and know their limitations and needs”, they defend from the club. Neither locating them in a specific space within the stadium, nor distributing them to different sectors of the stands, for the dogs to go to the field does not fit into the vision of a long-term project. It is also necessary to take into account the regulations regarding access to football stadiums, but all the studies carried out rule out this idea. Of course, Girona has already presented its official dog: Canya, a 4-year-old Labrador retriever trained to intervene with children and the elderly and used to large numbers of people.
The link between Girona and Gosbi began in the summer of 2021. A year later, both have been promoted to Primera. In that time frame, the projection has only increased. “We know that if we go together with Girona we can go much further and do things that have never been done before: for a professional club to openly convey the need to defend and respect the animal world”, they explain from the company alt- from Empordà, who was the one who approached Girona to explore the possibility of a collaboration. The club then conducted a study and the results indicated that the two entities were compatible in values. The rest is history.
The impact for the people of Montilivi, who donate one euro to solidarity for each shirt sold, is highly satisfactory. Gosbi’s name on the front of the shirt is shown every weekend in the main fields of the State, publicity that is proving very positive for Girona, as it has managed to associate it with solidarity campaigns and with a social background beautiful The main initiative, the Animal Respect on Tour campaign, serves to distribute food for dogs and cats taking advantage of the matches Girona plays away from home: in the promotion season more than twenty animal shelters were visited after to travel 27,000 kilometers and deliver 300 kilos of feed. The speaker for Gosbi is also extraordinary.
Much more than just sponsorship
On social networks, the interaction was immediate and almost 25,000 followers were reached. “Girona is a club we feel close to”, says Isaac Parés, CEO of Gosbi – which is also present in grassroots football, women’s football, the veterans’ team and Genuine. And he adds: “From the first moment he has shown a complete willingness to collaborate in the dissemination of love and respect for animals, and has opened the doors to jointly devising a collaboration that goes far beyond a simple patronage”. “It’s not a purely commercial message. It helps us raise society’s awareness of animal respect. It means much more than putting a name and a logo on a shirt,” boasted the club’s CEO, Ignasi Mas-Bagà.
The first team players have also been involved. “It is a totally unfair situation that they have had to live in. The lack of conscience of human beings is condemning them in life. They have done nothing to be like this and only we can give them a new chance and a new family,” says Bernardo Espinosa in the announcement of the dog adoption campaign of the Refuge Bú Bup Parc de la Bisbal d’Empordà, a media success that led to several families visiting its facilities and adopting animals.
“We consider domestic animals members of the family, and we are against mascotization, which turns the animal into a market product that can suffer all the uses typical of the consumerist mentality,” can be read on Gosbi’s website, which concludes as follows: “We must dismantle the idea of private ownership of animals and replace it with their tutoring and care, and thus favor socio-cultural changes in favor of a more dignified moral and ethical treatment respecting their animal condition”. “We are delighted with this collaboration and want to continue exploring the possibilities to expand our actions”, they say in Montilivi. Actions that, for the time being, will not include the dogs being able to support Girona in the stands during a game in Primera .
