Spain’s national football team, which won the World Cup two months ago in South Africa, was on Tuesday awarded the country’s prestigious Prince of Asturias Prize in the category of sports.
The team was an example of “overcoming, team spirit, modesty and engagement with the values of sports,” the jury said in Oviedo.
Other candidates for the award included the Spanish mountain climber Edurne Pasaban and Ethiopian marathon runner Haile Gebreselassie.
A football team has won the award only once before, Brazil in 2002 after also winning the World Cup that year. Other sports category winners include athletics star Carl Lewis, tennis player Rafael Nadal and the late International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch.
The Prince of Asturias Prize is worth 50,000 euros (64,000 dollars). It is awarded annually in eight categories, and presented by Crown Prince Felipe at an October ceremony.
