FCBARCELONA.CAT

17.04.2008 13:32

Barça sets up football school in Hong Kong

www.fcbarcelona.cat

This Friday, FC Barcelona and Hong Kong club Kitchee unveiled a new football school in Hong Kong. This is Barça’s first football school in Asia.

The agreement between FC Barcelona and Kitchee, formalized by Barça director Albert Perrin and Mr Fraser (head of sponsors Fortis in the region) and Mr Ken (president of Kitchee), allows Barça to open its very first permanent football school in Asia.

Great excitement in Hong Kong

Some thirty journalists representing both regional and international media were present at the presentation ceremony. On behalf of FC Barcelona, Albert Perrín thanked the hosts for their warm reception and stressed the values our Club wishes to transmit: “We’d like to transmit throughout the world the philosophy and values that characterise us. On a sports level, we commit ourselves to good football and fair play; on a social level being “more than a club” implies transmitting, via sport, values such as solidarity, integration, respect, honesty and a capacity for sacrifice”. Perrín has taken advantage of his trip to Hong Kong to visit the future installations of the new school.

Nurturing new talent

The main objective of the new football school is to train and develop promising youngsters by applying Barça’s sports model and training methods. The task will be supervised by coaches who have carried out this work at Barça and who, therefore, know the philosophy and work methods in depth.

Boys aged 6 to 11

The school is aimed at boys aged 6 to 11, an age range that encompasses some half million potential pupils. Thanks to a sponsorship deal with Fortis, the centre will be free and entry will be purely on the basis of merit with the aim of converting promising youngsters in to top class footballers.