Published May 22, 2026
Josep Guardiola is more than just a football manager who uses his high-profile platform to highlight causes close to his heart.
Liverpool’s legendary manager Bill Shankly may have believed that football was “far more important” than life or death, but for Guardiola some things other than “the beautiful game” are just as important.
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The 55-year-old Spaniard will leave the Manchester City dugout on Sunday after winning 20 trophies in 10 years.
Guardiola has gone above and beyond the call of duty for causes ranging from Palestinian children to Catalan independence to homelessness in Britain.
He also makes no bones about using his platform to “speak up for the betterment of society.”
Mr Guardiola’s latest foray into politically sensitive territory was his passionate embrace of the plight of Palestinian children in Gaza during the two-year war with Israel and the suffering that followed.
The war, which began after Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023, has killed at least 72,568 people in the Gaza Strip. The victims included children ranging from infants to late teens.
Despite a ceasefire that took effect in October, the situation remains dire, with hundreds of thousands of displaced people still living in tents.
This devastation is keenly felt by the youngest members of society, and Guardiola felt the topic was so important that he attended the “Act x Palestine” charity event in Barcelona in January this year, skipping the pre-match press conference.
With a Palestinian keffiyeh around his neck, he began his attack.
“I wonder what we would think when we saw a child recording himself on social media and on TV for the past two years, asking, ‘Where is my mother?’ He was in the rubble, but he doesn’t know it yet,” he said.
“And I always wonder, what are they thinking? And I think we just left them alone and abandoned them.”
While widely praised, his foray into this sensitive issue also came under fire, particularly from representatives of Manchester’s Jewish community.
Following his comments last year, the Greater Manchester Regional Jewish Representative Council wrote to Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak, warning that his comments were putting the lives of Manchester’s Jews at “risk”.
But Guardiola remained undeterred, as he did in 2018 when he was fined £20,000 by the Football Association for wearing a yellow ribbon in support of a jailed politician in his native Catalonia.
It wasn’t just the suffering of Palestinian children that inspired him to speak out.
At a press conference in February, he expressed regret not only for violence in the Middle East, but also for the deaths of two people in Ukraine, Sudan, and the United States at the hands of ICE agents.
“When you have an idea and you have to defend it, and you have to kill thousands of people, I’m sorry, but I stand up,” he said.
“I’ll always be there, always.”
But amid rising anti-Semitism, the Greater Manchester Regional Jewish Representative Council was furious that he failed to mention the terrorist attack on a synagogue in the city in October last year that left two people dead.
“This is particularly galling given that he was completely unable to use his prominent position to show solidarity with the Jewish community that suffered a terrorist attack just a few miles from the Etihad Stadium,” they said in a statement in February.
Guardiola is also paying attention to those close to him who are suffering.
For several years his Guardiola Sala Foundation has supported the Salvation Army Partnership Trophy, a five-a-side football tournament in Manchester, which raises awareness of homelessness in the UK.
“It’s so encouraging to see how football brings people together and helps them overcome some of the most difficult personal challenges,” he said.
