UEFA gives Nyon sports help

The hopes and ambitions of sportsmen/women and sports clubs in UEFA's home base of Nyon are being given considerable impetus by the European body's contribution to grassroots sport in the western Swiss town.

UEFA moved to Nyon, on the banks of Lake Geneva, in 1995, and has been proactive in helping to promote sport and the activities of the local sporting community within the Fondation pour le Développement du Sport à Nyon (Foundation for the Development of Sport in Nyon), which was founded in 2000.

The foundation's objective is to subsidise Nyon-based sports clubs, and thereby encourage and motivate youngsters in particular to practise a sporting discipline. Another aim is to help improve sporting infrastructures in the town of some 19,000 inhabitants located just 25km from Geneva. A board is responsible for running the foundation, comprising the mayor of Nyon, the municipal office for sport and a representative of UEFA.

Annual awards are made to deserving sportsmen/women and sports clubs/bodies from Nyon, and this year's ceremony brought awards for three projects submitted – by Nyon Tennis Club, Nyon Table Tennis Club and Nyon Basketball Club. The foundation can support individuals, notably young elite sportsmen/women who live in Nyon, and offers crucial backing to the upgrading of sports installations in the town, as well as providing successful award candidates with equipment that the sports organisations in question need to practise a sport.

The foundation also finances training or improvement programmes run for young people by the Nyon sports clubs. Moreover, local athletes have been able to realise cherished dreams by taking part in national and international competitions and events, which have not only resulted in sporting fulfilment, but also the opportunity to further cultural knowledge and meet people from other countries. "Nyon is a town of sport and culture, and must remain a town of sport and culture," said the mayor of Nyon, Daniel Rossellat, who thanked UEFA for its contribution to the town's busy sporting environment as part of the foundation.

After more than three decades in the Swiss federal capital Berne, UEFA first set up temporary headquarters in Nyon in 1995, while the House of European Football, situated on the edge of the town, was built. The European body moved into its new premises in October 1999 and now operates from a football campus consisting of three buildings.

In 2010, UEFA took over the management of the impressive Stade de Colovray, opposite its headquarters. The stadium has staged European youth competition finals, top European club and national teams have trained and played there, and it is also the home of UEFA's Centre of Refereeing Excellence (CORE).