Since 1997, the Catalan national team has played an international friendly match nearly every year, coinciding with the Christmas holidays. In 2009, in the context of Catalan aspirations to participate in official FIFA or UEFA competitions, the president of the Catalan Football Federation, Jordi Casals, announced the conversion of friendlies into an annual tournament, named the Catalonia International Trophy. The artist Joan Mora donated a sculpture symbolising the four bars of the Catalan flag as a prize for the winner.[1]