Real Madrid to donate €1m to help refugees in Spain

• Club pledges to help people ‘forced to flee from war and death’
• Real Madrid join growing support for refugees at clubs around Europe

Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo expressed sympathy for the plight of refugees in a tweet on Friday.

Real Madrid are to donate €1m to aid refugees taken in by Spain, the club have announced. Real have followed in the footsteps of clubs such as Bayern Munich and Celtic, who this week pledged to provide help to people affected by the refugee crisis.

"Faithful to its commitment to charity, the club has taken this decision with the aim of supporting men, women and children who have been forced to leave their homes in order to flee from war and death," read a statement on the club’s official website.

"The president of Real Madrid, Florentino Perez, spoke [on Friday] by phone with the president of the government, Mariano Rajoy. The pair talked about this contribution and other measures that the club will put in place in order to collaborate with the care of refugees that arrive in Spain."

The Real Madrid forward Cristiano Ronaldo, who is on Portugal duty, expressed sympathy for refugees in a tweet on Friday evening. "No one at the national team is indifferent to Europe’s refugee crisis. All our thoughts are with those people," he said.