Common Goal charity celebrates one year anniversary with over £600k already raised

The Common Goal initiative celebrates its one year anniversary on Saturday, with more than 50 players and coaches having joined the football movement and over £600k raised.

Players including Juan Mata, Giorgio Chiellini, Mats Hummels and Alex Morgan have all agreed to donate one percent of their salaries to charity, as has Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin.

And this summer, the project celebrated the first professional club to join the movement. FC Nordsjælland, of the Danish Superliga, donated one percent of gates from their Europa League qualification match against Sweden’s AIK.

Nordsjælland have since pledged that each of their teams – from the under-12’s all the way up to the senior squad – will this season raise funds for charitable organisations benefiting from Common Goal, before visiting them next summer.

“We believe that it is a club’s responsibility to offer a holistic education to players and Common Goal is the best tool available,” said club chairman, Tom Vernon. “It’s vital that players are made aware of the world around them and the potential they have to unleash football’s power for good.”

Common Goal was launched when Manchester United player Mata became the first professional footballer to pledge a portion of his wages to charity – ironically on the very same day that Neymar completed his record-breaking £200m move from Barcelona to Paris Saint-Germain.

Mata was quickly followed by a raft of other players, including familiar faces from English football such as Alfie Mawson, Bruno Saltor, Charlie Daniels, Duncan Watmore and Kasper Schmeichel. The Leicester City goalkeeper was one of five Common Goal members to take part at the 2018 World Cup.

On the date of the initiative’s first anniversary, co-founder and CEO Juergen Griesbeck paid tribute to Common Goal’s growing team of players, although he added that there is still much work to be done.

“We are really gathering impetus now, Common Goal has moved from an idea to something the football industry understands is possible,” he said.

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“There is still a long way to go, but we are showing that football has the power to contribute significantly to achieving the UN Global Goals and tackling some of the most pressing challenges of our times. Just like in football, we need to perform as a team.

“We firmly believe that together, as global football community, we can - and if we can, we have to.”