Joan Laporta may be the president of one of the world’s most decorated and successful soccer teams, but he can speak about the club for hours without focusing solely on its many trophies.

Laporta, the president of Futbol Club Barcelona, talked to an overflowing crowd at Arrillaga Family Sports Center for two-and-a-half hours last night about his organization’s role in global sports and society.

FC Barcelona, or “Barca” as it is affectionately known by its fans, won both the Spanish premier league title and the European Champions Cup in 2006, cementing its status as one of the top teams in the world. The club has attracted a huge global following among soccer fans and has over 155 thousand dues-paying members across the world.

But there is far more than soccer to this club, as evidenced by Barcelona’s telling motto, “mes que un club” (“more than a club” in Catalan). That simple phrase is both a symbol of pride and a call to action for Laporta and his administration.

“To be ‘more than a club’ is a virtue, but at the same time it is a great responsibility,” Laporta said.

Between occasional clips of famous soccer players scoring goals and lifting trophies, the club president concentrated on Barcelona’s role and goals as a social institution. It has served as a flagship for Catalan nationalism since the 1930s and is now trying to extend that influence globally. Barca under Laporta has undertaken historic initiatives that are unprecedented for a professional soccer team, including an agreement to wear the logo of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on the front of the team’s jerseys.

Barcelona solidified its identity as “more than a club” in the 1960s, when the team championed Catalan freedom and identity during a period of intense oppression by the centralist regime of Francisco Franco. Because of its affiliation with Catalan nationalism, the police and sympathetic referees did their best to punish the team during matches, but that only strengthened the link between Barcelona and democratic social values.

“On the field, the club was not doing so well,” Laporta said. “But off the pitch, we became stronger.”

That strength continued to build over the years until the logical leap from concentration on Catalan affairs to involvement in global causes. The institutions of soccer are in a unique position to affect the world, as Laporta noted by pointing out that FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, has 207 member nations, compared to 192 in the United Nations.

“Football makes an incredible amount of money these days, and it is only right that part of the money goes to less fortunate people,” Laporta said.

In the first few years of Laporta’s administration, Barcelona organized and hosted fundraising matches to benefit the victims of the 2004 South Asian tsunami and was very actively involved in international anti-racism campaigns. Last summer, Barcelona formed what Laporta described as an unprecedented and “pioneering global alliance with UNICEF” to financially support, and prominently advertise, the cause of the children’s advocacy foundation.

Whereas most European soccer teams get huge sums of money for wearing a sponsor’s logo across the front of their shirts, FC Barcelona players wear the UNICEF symbol across their chests, much to Laporta’s pride. The club also donates 1.5 million euros per year to the foundation.

UNICEF’s emblem is the only logo to grace the team’s shirt-front in all of Barcelona’s 108-year existence. That sacrifice of tradition for a higher cause is a hugely important step to Laporta.

“We are positioning the social identity of the club,” Laporta said. “We are ourselves as ‘more than a club’ in the world, [not just in Catalonia].”

As part of the team’s partnership with UNICEF, Barcelona is sponsoring the development of education and sports centers in a host of African and Latin American nations, including Senegal, Cameroon, Brazil and Mexico. Laporta also announced the impending opening of a center in Swaziland for HIV-positive children.

“[FC Barcelona has an obligation] according to our culture, according to our history and according to our place in the world,” he said.

There have been small bumps in the road as Laporta has tried to widen the club’s goals. Laporta said that he and his fellow directors thought long and hard about Barcelona’s relationship with Nike when they negotiated their deal with UNICEF. The sportswear giant has been widely criticized for its labor practices, especially those regarding children. But Laporta noted that Barcelona’s sponsor is not on UNICEF’s list of “trouble companies” and that Nike is required, under the terms of its contract with the club, to donate 50 million euros to the humanitarian FC Barcelona Foundation over the next six years.

Ultimately, if there was one thing that attendees could take away from Laporta’s talk, it was the infectious enthusiasm with which the Barcelona president discussed his club’s humanitarian work. He takes obvious pleasure in the good causes that Barcelona is promoting.

As passionate as Laporta is about the efforts that Barcelona is making to spread its democratic and social values throughout the world, he is just as excited by the trail the club is blazing for others in the world of professional soccer to follow.

“The most important [part] is the message that FC Barcelona is launching to the world,” Laporta said. “We have to make people aware that football can bring joy and hope.

“We are saying to less fortunate people that they are not alone.”