The prize exists to honour players who have demonstrated a "real" connection to region of their club.
Athletic Bilbao place particular importance on player loyalty and promotion from within, with the majority of their players graduating from
their youth academy system based at the
Lezama Facilities outside
Bilbao; they have a self-imposed limitation where they
will only field players that have a connection to the
Basque region where they are based. As such they have a small pool of potential players to choose from compared to other large clubs, and their players are encouraged to agree to long-term contracts to remain. According to the club, up until the 21st century "the association between clubs and the territory they belonged to was a football club’s most important identifying feature". This feature is what they call the
Principle of Origin - "which boils down to: I support the team of where I come from because their players represent me and share my origin. They are “our players”. In recent years, the club believes that the principle of origin has been superseded by success at all costs with clubs often featuring teams without any players from the city the club represents. == Values ==