The ‘Quit smoking with Barca’ campaign wins the 2013 ELF award.

The joint campaign between FC Barcelona and the European Commission, ‘Quit Smoking with Barça - Deja de Fumar con el Barça’, has been honoured by the European Lung Foundation (ELF) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) with the 2013 ELF award.

This initiative, which already has more than 70,000 registered users, was the first initiative of such scale to be organised by a public institution and a sports club. 'Quit smoking with Barca' gives fans of the football team custom designed methods to deal with health issues and a series of tips to help quit smoking.

"We are delighted to have worked alongside the European Commission in a such an important project related with public health, and we are very proud to be here, in Barcelona, to collect the ELF award. We at Barca firmly believe in our motto 'More than a club ', and we want to promote the values of respect and social commitment to health" Jordi Mones, the director in charge of the FC Barcelona Medical Services, said at the award ceremony.

The president of the ELF, Monica Fletcher, endorsed the decision to award the club with the award: "What impressed us most about this campaign was that people who had previously not been able to kick the habit, or hadn’t even tried to, could be reached. "

‘Quit Smoking with Barça - Deja de fumar con el Barça’ was launched in Decemeber of 2012 and was borne out of two other similar initiatives: ‘Ex-smokers are unstoppable’, by the European Commission, and ‘A Barca without smoke’, which the club ran independently.