Families on the field – E.ON launches Family Football Program in eleven clubs
2010.07.08
Initiative could involve up to 15,000 people
Kozármisleny, Gyulafirátót and Kecskemét are among the first communities to be affected by the Family Football Program. The E.ON Family Football Program is devoting HUF 30 million to events and programs that promote quality family time and healthy sports in eleven communities. The program’s patron, Mrs Ferenc Puskás greeted the grant recipients.
The 41 applications from all parts of the country for the Family Football grant announced a month ago proved that the idea of a football program providing the opportunity for quality family time was indeed well founded and that the sport’s potential for bringing families together could be made real.
A panel made up of footballer Ottó Vincze, Olympic champion footballers József Gelei and Kálmán Ihász, Olympic champion pentathlete László Fábián, and E.ON employees finally announced that two of the 11 recipients in the HUF 30 million grant program could create family football programs by sharing a single grant. The grant recipients are:
- Tóth József Bábolnai
Youth Football Club, Tárkány
- Football Tanoda Foundation,
Biatorbágy
- Kozármisleny Sports Club
- Szekszárd Youth Football Club
- Cegléd Railway Workers
Sports Club
- Football Club Keszthely
- Gyulafirátót-Kádárta
Sports Club
- Kecskemét Football Club
- Downtown Women’s
Football Club, Budapest
- Sándorfalva Youth Sports Club
- Kispest Football
Support Association
The applicants came up with several interesting and creative ideas. The Kispest Honvéd program, for instance, is announcing a fans’ contest for primary and secondary school students in four of Budapest’s districts; it is organizing family training sessions and a family football tournament that includes students from the counties and their parents. The Downtown Women’s Club in Budapest was unique among the recipients in that it will be using HUF 1.5 million to create family fan and exercise programs. The Gyulafirátót club is announcing a family street championship, and the Kozármisleny club is creating a family club room and organizing family football weekends. The foundation in Biatorbágy is starting family football tournaments and including families from six neighboring communities, and they are creating a Football Club in cooperation with the Town Sports Museum, where once a month football fans are able talk to present-day players, coaches and reporters as well as legendary players of times gone by.
“I’m certain the programs being created now will help make the family members who used to shout themselves hoarse on the sidelines participants in this beautiful sport,” said footballer Ottó Vincze, the ambassador for the Family Football program, who has been providing his expertise to help the program. “We’ll begin to work together in July, and it’s my job to motivate the winning clubs and associations, give them advice, and monitor the programs they set up. It’s a personal challenge for me to work with the grant recipients because I will definitely learn a lot from them,” Mr. Vincze said. 
In addition to having an ambassador in Ottó Vincze, the program also has a patron. This role is being fulfilled by Mrs. Ferenc Puskás, known to all as Aunt Bözsi, who, as the widow of the world famous footballer, was asked to serve as patron because of her well-known commitment to the family and to the sport.
“We too were curious when we announced the grant program as to whether the idea of family football and its message would get across and what kind of ideas the applicants would come up with. The applications we received, though, were reassuring. This kind of initiative really is justified. There is in fact a very great need for it, both socially and economically. The opportunity, then, has been given, and the ball is now in the clubs’ court.” E.ON Board Chairman Konrad Kreuzer said.
The program, however, is not going to stop here. In October E.ON will be announcing a similar program for local governments to be put into practice next spring. If the program continues to be successful, there will be more grants for football clubs and associations.
Last year E.ON, within the frames of its Family Football program distributed football sports equipment packages worth HUF 30 million among 720 schools.
Contact
Corporate Communications - Laura Szanyi
E.ON in Hungary
E.ON Hungária is Hungary’s largest investor and, at the same time, the country’s leading energy provider. For the E.ON Hungária companies and their employees, corporate responsibility is about doing something for society, both as a company and as individuals, through our basic business activities, our community projects, our charitable programs and our public commitments. We believe that corporate responsibility is an attitude a company assumes that must pervade its every act and thought. Naturally, the goal of our group, as a profit-making enterprise, is to excel in business. In order to achieve this goal, however, we have to consider the interests of our social environment – our customers, the communities we work in, our employees and our partners – and our actions have to coincide with the needs of our environment and our society. We believe that one of the preconditions of long-term success in business is the approval of society, and we can get this “license to operate” if we respect the needs of our society and the communities we work in and take them into consideration in all our deliberations and actions and, furthermore, if we carry on a continuous dialogue with them.