Pep Guardiola welcomes 28 Palestinian children to his summer camp
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In the Catalan Pyrenees town of Rialp, the sixth edition of the Pep Summer Camp has taken on a special dimension this summer.
Organized under the Guardiola Sala Foundation, the football-focused program welcomed 28 Palestinian children affected by the ongoing war carried out by ‘Israel’, offering them days of training, play, and ordinary childhood moments alongside hundreds of other young participants.
The initiative began in January when a young Palestinian resident of Barcelona contacted camp organizers.
At his latest summer camp, Pep Guardiola welcomed 28 Palestinian children, giving them a space to play, smile and simply be children.
— Leyla Hamed (@leylahamed) July 28, 2026
His legacy goes far beyond football. Nobody comes close. pic.twitter.com/TgvNFAVops
He hoped to turn the dream of roughly thirty children from Palestine into reality: meeting Pep Guardiola, a coach widely admired in Palestinian communities for his clear public stance on their situation.
“Pep, in the world of football and at a media level, is one of the few people who has positioned himself clearly on the situation in Palestine. For them this is very important,” explained camp coordinator Toni Aguilar, in statements to Spanish outlet Segre.
The children arrived in Barcelona the previous Saturday and joined the regular camp activities as ordinary participants.
To aid integration, organizers distributed them across different training groups in pairs, supported by five monitors who also served as interpreters.
“Here they are just one more. They forget the problems they live with day to day and enjoy playing football with the other children. Because football is universal—behind the ball we are all equal,” Aguilar said.
Guardiola himself visited the camp, spending time smiling and interacting with the group. The broader program has drawn more than 700 children across its shifts at the Hotel Condes del Pallars facilities.
Alongside football sessions, the camp includes educational talks aimed at broadening perspectives. This year’s guests have included figures working with vulnerable youth and a specialist lawyer discussing online responsibilities and sportsmanship.
Laura Guerra, director of the Guardiola Sala Foundation, emphasized the value of exposing participants to different realities.
“We try to make sure the children see other realities. It is important that they know there are people who live very different situations,” she noted.
Organizers described the Palestinian children’s participation as a source of pride and indicated the experience could be repeated in future editions.
The gesture aligns with Guardiola’s earlier public comments.
At a January 2026 charity event in Barcelona, the Manchester City manager spoke emotionally about Palestinian children, saying the world had “left them alone, abandoned” and urging people not to look away. Those remarks helped cement his symbolic standing among many Palestinians.
