Sport - Football

FC Barcelona Academy in India

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 became 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, kho-kho and kabaddi.

The FC Barcelona Foundation seeks to use sports for development, besides repaying society through sports. It also aims to bring rural communities together, in that the participants are chosen purely on merit.

Set in a four-acre campus, the facilities include a playing field, two changing rooms, two class-rooms and a computer class-roomwith the objective of comprehensive education.

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 European 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 to watch the side live during a league match in Spain. A formal agreement was signed on September 12 between the funding and implementing foundations.

“Spanish football is looking to India and this could just be the beginning,” Ferrer said.

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