Delegates from 11 European cities were at Ibrox yesterday to learn how Rangers Football Club are working with their fans to improve their communities.
The club has been widely praised for its community programme, which regularly sees more than 6000 people take part in a string of schemes, from supported learning for primary school children to health and fitness drives for the over 50s.
Rangers' Community Manager Raymond Farrelly told representatives from locations as disparate as Valencia and Gothenburg about the work the club does with fans at a cost of up to £1.5m a year.
Mr Farrelly said: "This event represents a great opportunity for the club to showcase to a range of key community stakeholders throughout Europe the quality of work delivered by the Rangers Community Programme and its partners.
"In particular the Ready 2 Learn programme, which is a partnership with Glasgow City Council Education Services, City Building and Glasgow Community Safety Services, has achieved significant results in changing the lives of people who have been involved in negative activity - which is testament to the positive influence of Rangers Football Club."
Some of the successes included bringing rival youth gangs together to break down barriers, and encouraging youngsters to take up foreign language courses.
In 2001 Rangers became the first Scottish club to open a study support centre, following a model laid down by Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea, which operate similar schemes.
The £250,000 community facility boasts 28 computers and is the base for the educational work that the club carries out.
Co-ordinator Domenic Sharkey said: "We found that you can use football as the carrot to bring youngsters to learning.
"We found through our work with a school in Castlemilk that if you ask a classroom of kids: Who wants to do a Spanish course?' we got no response, but if we said: Who wants to go to Rangers and interview the Spanish players?' we had thirty youngsters put their hands up.
"It leads them into learning."
Delegate Tom Ambler from Birmingham's Community Safety Partnership was impressed with the work going on at Ibrox.
Mr Ambler said: "It's really interesting to see how Rangers have taken on the responsibility of tackling social problems in Glasgow. It looks like they're producing results.
"It's a great set up and something which Aston Villa and Birmingham City could learn from."
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