Chapecoense invited to play Barcelona in their annual pre-season friendly at the Nou Camp

Barcelona have invited Chapecoense to face them in their annual pre-season friendly at the Nou Camp and have pledged to ‘collaborate on the institutional and sporting reconstruction of the club’.

Seventy one people, including 19 Chapecoense players, were killed in a plane crash in Colombia last month as the Brazilian club made their way to the Copa Sudamericana final – which would have been the biggest match in their history.

The annual Joan Gamper Trophy match marks the start of Barca’s season with a different team invited each year to play at their 99,354-seater stadium.

A Barcelona statement read: ‘FC Barcelona wants to pay tribute to the 71 people who died in the accident and their families, and will therefore make the 2017 Joan Gamper Trophy a great tribute to the world of football through various activities around this match which will become known as the date of this celebration approaches.

‘Along with the invitation to Chapecoense to the 2017 Joan Gamper Trophy, FC Barcelona would like to collaborate on the institutional and sporting reconstruction of the club, and help to recover the competitive level that it had.’

The Joan Gamper Trophy – named in honour of the former Barcelona player and president – has been running since 1966.

It was reduced from a four-team tournament to a one-off match in 1997, the last of which saw Barcelona beat Italians Sampdoria 3-2 in August.

Chapecoense were this week awarded the 2016 Copa Sudamericana by South American football federation CONMEBOL.