21,000 football fans support UN charity match for ‘Yolanda’
Players of the 11th UNDP Match Against Poverty show their support for the Philippines before 21,000 football fans during the charity game held in Bern, Switzerland March 4.
MANILA, Philippines – More than 21,000 football fans supported the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) charity Match Against Poverty to raise funds for survivors of Super Typhoon Yolanda (international name Yolanda).
“Although UNDP team scored 8 and the Berne Football Club Young Boys scored 6, it was really the Philippines that scored 14 because both sides were playing for them,” Aziyade Poltier, organizer of the Match Against Poverty, said in a statement March 5.
Football legends Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, and Marta Vieira da Silva, also Goodwill Ambassadors of the UNDP, headed the UNDP team for the 14th Match Against Poverty held in Bern, Switzerland last March 4.
At least 420,000 Swiss francs (estimated $472,500) were raised from ticket sales alone. Proceeds of the charity game will go to helping the recovery efforts of UNDP in the areas devastated by Yolanda particularly in Leyte and Samar provinces.
“I am very happy to be in a position to be able to contribute to the important cause championed by UNDP,” Ronaldo told reporters in a press conference before the game.
“All three of us footballers up here on the podium grew up in poverty. If our lives and our game can contribute to its reduction then the beautiful game will truly be beautiful,” he said.
Petra Lantz, Director of the UNDP Offices in Geneva, said that the annual event is “global solidarity at its best.”
The annual Match Against Poverty has been held by the UNDP since 2003 to raise funds for the UNDP’s humanitarian projects in specific countries all over the world.
About $1 million was raised from the first Match Against Poverty and has raised hundreds of thousands more every year.
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