More than a game: Dani Olmo’s lasting connection with Croatia
Since joining Common Goal in 2020, Dani Olmo has committed 1% of his salary to support organisations using football to create opportunities for young people and communities — including community-based programmes in Croatia, a country that has played a defining role in his own journey.
For Dani Olmo, Croatia has always meant more than football.
It is where he spent five formative years of his career after moving to Dinamo Zagreb as a teenager, learning the language, building friendships and developing a connection to the country and its people that has remained with him ever since.
When Dani joined Common Goal in 2020, that commitment became an opportunity to give something back to a place that had given him so much.
Common Goal connected Dani with Cross Cultures Project Association (CCPA) and its work in Croatia, using football to bring children and communities together and creating spaces for inclusion, education and personal development.
The relationship reflects a simple idea at the heart of Common Goal: connecting people within professional football who want to make a difference with organisations rooted in communities and already using the game to create lasting change.
Football creating connection in communities across Croatia
CCPA has been active in Croatia since 2003. Over the years, its programmes have reached communities across the country, creating opportunities for thousands of children to participate in inclusive football activities.
At the heart of its work is the Open Fun Football Schools (OFFS) programme, which uses football not as a pathway to professional sport, but as a tool to bring people together.
Volunteer teachers and coaches are trained through a dedicated pedagogical programme to create activities in which every child can participate, regardless of gender, ethnic background, ability or previous experience in sport.
Particular attention is given to reaching children who might otherwise not have access to organised sporting activities.
Over the years, the programme has also brought together children and communities from different ethnic backgrounds through international and cross-border activities. Its work has addressed issues ranging from health and nutrition to racism, equality, the inclusion of girls in sport, addiction prevention and peer violence.
Since beginning its work in Croatia, CCPA has organised 227 Open Fun Football Schools, involving more than 44,000 children, alongside 194 one-day festivals that have recorded approximately 31,000 participations.
Since 2020, Dani's contributions through Common Goal have supported these programmes, helping sustain community-based activities in different parts of the country rather than being directed towards individual projects or locations.
Activities supported through the donation have taken place in communities including Sibinj, Varaždin, Sinj, Antunovac, Daruvar, Čakovec, Andrijevci, Korenica and Žrnovnica, reflecting the geographical reach of the programme and its commitment to creating opportunities for children through football.
In a region whose recent history has left deep divisions across communities, football can offer a simple but powerful space for children to meet, play and experience different ways of thinking — building friendships, tolerance and a sense of belonging along the way.
Dani's support has helped contribute to this community-based work.
From supporting the work to showing up
In June 2022, Dani travelled to Sibinj, near Slavonski Brod, to join an international Open Fun Football Festival organised after months of preparation between CCPA, its local partners and Common Goal.
More than 200 children took part.
Dani arrived together with his brother and father and spent the day playing Open Fun Football games with the children, joining activities and taking part in a “Walk and Talk” session where young participants could ask him about everything from his time at Dinamo Zagreb and his favourite food to the inevitable question: Messi or Ronaldo?
Because Dani speaks Croatian, the conversations came naturally.
But for the people who organised the festival, what stayed with them was not simply the presence of an international footballer. It was how he showed up.
He took time with every child, signing autographs, taking photographs, giving hugs and listening to their questions.
“Today, Dani is a big star, but during the festival he showed us that, despite his success, he remains a simple boy who started playing football because he loved the game,” recalls the local organising team.
“What he showed the children that day went far beyond football. He showed them humanity, kindness, humility and love — and that is something they will remember for a very long time.”
A relationship that continues
Dani's support for football for good in Croatia did not end with that visit.
In 2025, an Open Fun Football Festival in Slavonia brought together around 70 girls and boys to play, learn and socialise in a positive and inclusive environment. The festival also introduced a new programme focused on girls' health and participation in sport.
Across the wider programme, local schools, football clubs, sports organisations and volunteers work together to create environments where children can feel safe, included and connected. Equipment provided through the programmes remains within local communities, while volunteers and coaches receive training and educational materials that help the impact continue long after an individual festival ends.
And Croatia is part of a wider commitment.
In 2026, Dani also launched El Tiempo de Todos, an initiative developed together with Fútbol Más and Common Goal, in collaboration with local organisations La Rotllana and AE Ramassà in Barcelona and Badalona.
The project grew out of conversations between Dani and young people in his community — listening to their experiences, ambitions and challenges before developing a programme around them. Inspired both by those conversations and Dani’s own experience of leaving home for Croatia at the age of 16, the initiative uses football as an educational and social tool to help young people develop their potential and navigate challenges on and off the pitch.
Together, his support in Croatia and El Tiempo de Todos show how Dani is connecting his own experiences through football with opportunities for others.
It is not simply about giving. It is about connecting the resources and influence of professional football with people using the game every day to strengthen their communities.
For Dani, Croatia is one of those places.
Years after leaving Dinamo Zagreb, his connection to the country continues — not only through the memories, relationships and language he took with him, but through the communities he continues to support.
And whenever Spain and Croatia meet on the pitch, they may be opponents for 90 minutes. But Dani's relationship with Croatia — and his commitment to giving something back through the game that shaped his own life — goes far beyond the result of a football match.
Comments