Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has been praised for calling for the people of Catalonia to turn out in force for a charity match for Palestinians, due to take place this weekend.
The upcoming friendly matches will take place on 15 and 18 November, where Palestine’s national team will face teams from the Catalonia and Basque regions.
Both these Spanish regions have strong separatist movements and have agreed to face the Palestinian team in the charity matches.
Guardiola said the match was "much more than a game" and said that it was "in tribute to more than 400 athletes who have been murdered in Gaza".
In the video, he referred to Barcelona, the main city in the Catalonia region, as “the city of peace” and said the game was a "cry for solidarity".
The friendly match comes as over 69,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza since the start of the war on the enclave in October 2023.
The video amassed widespread praise from social media users and activists, who thanked him for using his platform to shed light on the plight of Palestinians.
"Shame that more people in football of similar status don’t have the integrity, respect and honesty of Pep," one person commented.
"As a Liverpool fan, I respect Pep for this…and because of this, Pep just earned one more fan," another wrote.
The match is expected to garner thousands of supporters and comes at a time where many sports organisations and officials are trying to use sports as a tool to advocate for peace.
Last month, Guardiola called on people to "pressure governments to take immediate action" on Gaza, sports broadcaster The Athletic reported.
The manager also said he supported a pro-Gaza demonstration taking place in Barcelona on 4 October.
"The Gaza Strip is devastated, and a flood of people are walking without shelter, food, drinking water, or medicine. Only an organised urban civil society can save lives and pressure governments to take immediate action," he said in a video posted on social media at the time.
In June, after receiving an honorary doctorate from the University of Manchester, he said, "It’s so painful what we see in Gaza, it hurts my whole body".
In recent months, calls have grown for the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) to suspend Israel, due to rights abuses committed against Palestinians.
Israel’s war on Gaza has destroyed much of Gaza's infrastructure including stadiums and sporting facilities.
Earlier this week, dozens of athletes also sent a letter to UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin, calling on the organisation to also sever ties with the Israel Football Association (IFA).
Some of the athletes who have endorsed the letter include French World Cup winner Paul Pogba, Moroccan footballer Hakim Ziyech, and prominent Dutch forward Anwar el-Ghazi.
The war on Gaza has been determined to be a genocide by leading rights groups, including Amnesty International.