New Women’s Basketball Castelló: a leadership and social commitment to forget the disappointment with the Albinegra Foundation

The football club from the capital of La Plana, in 2019, was the one that sought out the NBF Castelló and the soccer players from Joventut Almassora CF to form part of a project called Albinegra Foundationwith which the Castalia entity wanted to make a city and generate more identification with these colors among the environment.

At the beginning, everything was good words, illusion and prospects for a future of joint growth for the institutions, which achieved promotion to the second category of their respective sports in the summer of 2020.

The problem is that very soon the results in the Second Division of football turned their backs on CD Castellón, whose relegation began generating false promises and disaffection towards entities such as the NBF Castelló, who saw how the dream of joining the Fundació Albinegra ended up turning into a nightmare from which now, through a statement on social networks, they have managed to escape.

Point and end to two very complicated years

The beauty of sport, and of a means of communication such as YoSoyNoticia.es, is being able to focus on the daily heroes and heroines of sport, those people who contribute with their selfless effort to make local clubs bigger. It is the case of Lola Valls, the president of a NBF Castelló that leads the Women’s League 2 despite all the economic difficulties and readjustments on the march to which the lack of rigor and word that the Fundació Albinegra has shown towards them has recently forced.

Diluted the ambitious project that they were sold to build a city and generate a greater feeling of belonging to CD Castellón, which made them leave the ‘Endavant Esports’ program in which they were, and given the lack of empathy and tact of the new foreign managers of the club orellut that they have not wanted to know anything about them, the basketball entity has decided to walk alone and look for life in this boom time for women’s sport.

Lola Valls, who is fleeing controversies with CD Castellón and the Fundació Albinegra, despite still having to make loan payments that the previous managers of the football club told NBF Castelló to request because later “they would take care of all with the economic injection that they promised us but that we have not seen ”, he prefers to focus on the path traveled until he can close this year 2022 at the head of group B of the LF 2.

Emotionally we have wasted time in recent months trying to sit down with them, without figures or anything »

With just two defeats for the Senior, made up of a national nucleus that overcomes injuries and continues mostly in relation to last year (where they touched promotion to the new Women’s Challenge League, prelude to the highest category), from the offices Economic juggling continues to be done to keep the structure and illusion intact of the more than 250 players that make up the NBF Castellóas well as some families who find here a place where their daughters and sons can acquire very valuable sporting and human values.

“Emotionally, we have wasted time in recent months trying to sit down with them, without figures or anything, just to talk and see what was going to happen with the agreement we had with the Fundació Albinegra. We have not demanded, just ask that we sit down and they have not wanted to. Therefore we close this door and we are going to spend our time looking for other aid and sponsorships”Lola points out.

Women’s sport must be dignified, and that is why we try to give them the right environment for them to enjoy. At a sporting level the moment is great, and also in the NBF you can see that there is a lot of connection between the first team and the youth academy”

Together with other fathers and mothers, they make up the board of directors of an exemplary, neighborhood entity, close to their own and above all, they do not forget their humble roots, no matter how much they are on the court, one of the great aspirants to move up to the Challenge League this season. The NBF Castelló does not hurt to recognize that economically these are difficult times, that the promotion phase last year in Melilla forced them to make an economic effort that is still kicking, and that this season the seamless union of the entire club is what He is making it possible for things at the sporting level to turn out so well.

That and a total involvement of the players with the project, prevailing a feeling of incomplete work that they all want to complete this campaign with the long-awaited promotion to the second echelon of national women’s basketball. “Women’s sport must be dignified, and that is why we try to give them the right environment for them to enjoy. At a sporting level, the moment is great, and also in the NBF you can see that there is a great relationship between the first team and the youth academy ”, explains Lola as one of the keys to the present.

A social dimension that magnifies the sport of Castellón

The fiasco of a Fundació Albinegra that was sold out of doors as a city project should not prevent us from seeing the forest, where clubs move with ingenuity, commitment and a lot of passion for sports as a New Women’s Basketball Castelló that does honor that of the corporate social responsibility that entities like this, where many families place the hopes of their sons and daughters, want to assert.

The women’s basketball club triumphs on the court but also making the city with initiatives such as ‘Territorio Grapa, territorio Mujer’, a program that they promoted to help girls from peripheral neighborhoods. A successful volunteer program that the Generalitat Valenciana is already familiar with, and with which they pick up girls from humble neighborhoods to take them to train and play basketball with the club.

We are giving these girls the chance to be girls and they are fully integrated with the others, we only ask them to get good grades at school and that is how sport proves to be inclusive.”

One of those projects that reconcile us with life and sport, much more so in this Christmas season where we want to think that beyond economic interests and results there are people like the NBF Castelló who believe in sporting values ​​above all else. . “We pick them up, we bring them to train and then we return them to their homes,” says the president of the club about this scholarship program in which the Ministry of Equality is lending a hand.

“We are giving these girls the chance to be girls and they are fully integrated with the others, we only ask them to get good grades at school and that is how sport proves to be inclusive. It is corporate social responsibility that elite clubs must also exercisebecause we are at the top but we are humble and we have our feet on the ground”, adds Lola Valls.

This is how they currently have people from outside the city of Castellón, where their house in the Grapa pavilion is, which they fill with the support of the small great family of the NBF Castellón, and welcome players of different ages and from Moncofa, Morella, Nules, Benicarló or Vall d’Uixófor whom distance will never be an excuse thanks to the entity’s initiative.

Better alone than in bad company and now, after readjusting the budget on the fly, we will seek financing because I believe that there is no better time for women’s sports»

They have reasons to be excitednow without the mental and moral ballast that for the daily management of the club meant to continue with the uncertainty around the broken promises that they had been hearing since 2019. They lead the LF2, see their quarry triumph in the Preferred Cup or now among the best schools in Spain in the Christmas tournament in Granollers and they have convinced themselves that past water does not move a mill to look to the future with many hopes.

Lola Valls, president of a club that is a leader on the court and also off it due to its sensitivity towards the most disadvantaged strata of society, is very clear: “it is better alone than in bad company and now, after readjusting the budget on the fly, we will seek financing because I believe that there is no better time for women’s sports.