The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : FC Barcelona academy at Anantapur

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Sunday, Feb 10, 2008
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FC Barcelona academy at Anantapur

A. Joseph Antony

HYDERABAD: The Fundacion Futbol Club Barcelona (FC Barcelona Foundation), an affiliate of the Spanish soccer super power, has funded an academy, the first of its kind in Asia and third in the world after Senegal and Ecuador, which will become functional at Bhathalapally, near Anantapur on Monday.

Set up in collaboration with Fundacion Vincente Ferrer, the Spanish arm of the Rural Development Trust (RDT), an Anantapur-based NGO; it will train 103 boys and girls aged between 11 and 13 years primarily in football. At the suggestion of RDT’s Associate Programme Director Moncho Ferrer, training will also be given in hockey and kho-kho and kabaddi.

The FC Barcelona Foundation seeks to use sports for development, besides repaying society through sports. It also aims at bringing rural communities together, in that participants are chosen regardless of caste or creed.

Set in a four-acre campus, the facilities include a playing field, two changing rooms, two class-rooms and a computer class-room.

Though not a residential scheme, there will be two-and-half-hour sessions in the morning and evening and some nourishment provided to the participating children.

To the RDT estimate of €70,000, the club added another 10,000 for the three-year duration of the scheme that totally converts to Rs. 44 lakhs.

The project took shape last year following a visit by Martha Segu, International Projects Director.

An assurance of support came soon after, followed by an invitation from the club’s President Joan Laporta Estruch to Ferrer. A formal agreement was signed on September 12.

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