The Diplomat
The director of the Insituto Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero, and the president of the Superior Sports Council (Consejo Superior de Deportes, CSD), Irene Lozano, have signed a collaboration agreement for the dissemination of “the image of Spain, its language and culture” through Spanish sport and the network of centers of the Institute.
According to the agreement, signed last Thursday in person at the CSD headquarters, the two entities will be able to organize events “with literary authors in Spanish who have used sport in their work”, as well as international meetings on sport in literature or programs dedicated to sport in books that promote reading among children and young people. It also foresees the celebration of film cycles and theatrical, dance and music activities to tell stories linked to sport, as well as a large exhibition on the arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, photography, video, etc.) as forms of expression of sport.
The agreement also envisages other possible joint actions. Thus, the Cervantes centers will be able to host activities to mark the presence in the country of prominent Spanish athletes and teams. They will also organize marathons, races or matches on the occasion of international events, conferences to disseminate the importance of sport as a tool of public diplomacy in the State’s external action, or campaigns to promote Pan-Hispanic sport and the Spanish language as a means of disseminating its values. In the educational field, courses may be organized or materials on sports may be prepared in Spanish, such as specialized dictionaries on certain disciplines.
After the signing, Luis García Montero recalled “the very broad possibilities for collaboration that major sporting events give us” and declared, in this regard, that the general protocol of action signed with the CSD “will be a reference framework for working towards the major events of world sport”, including the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games, in which the Cervantes in the Japanese capital will be the House of Spain of the Spanish Olympic Committee.
For her part, Irene Lozano stressed that this agreement “brings together two worlds, sports and culture, which are obliged to cooperate given the media, social and international relevance that Spanish sport has achieved”. “The two most universal things we have in Spain are sport and language”, she concluded.
