From next April, FC Barcelona will have a third FCBEscola on the African continent following the announcement that a new soccer school will be opened in the Zambian capital of Lusaka. This continues the club’s expansion of a project that will now have a total of 41 branches in all five continents. In Africa, the club already has academies in Cairo (Egypt) and Lagos (Nigeria).

The FCBEscola Lusaka will be located on the Futsal and Sports Complex in the city, which has two 7-a-side football pitches and four futsal courts, all of which have artificial grass. The first training sessions will feature the almost 300 boys and girls that enjoyed the first FCBCamp Lusaka last October, while the official opening ceremony is scheduled for April 3.

The promoters of the new FCBEscola Lusaka are aware that this project will be of major importance for the development of young footballing talent in Zambia, and that the full potential of local athletic qualities is currently not being achieved. This school means youngsters will be able to use top quality facilities and will work with professional coaches trained at the Barça academy in Barcelona and thereby maximise their performances.

Thirty nine FCBEscola in all five continents

The FCBEscola is FC Barcelona’s own model for soccer schools aimed at both boys and girls, and the main goal is the comprehensive training of these pupils. The model has been successfully exported internationally as it seeks to expand the Barça name and transmit the club’s working philosophy and values to the rest of the world.

FCBEscolas operate according to their own model, which is based on the same methodology used at Barça all the way through from its youngest youth levels to the first team, involving a creative, attack-minded way of playing and the indispensable observance of values: respect, humility, effort, ambition and teamwork, with tried and tested results. 

FC Barcelona currently has a total of 39 active FCBEscolas, as well as some 180 camps and 50 clinics, in more than 50 countries in all five continents involving more than 50,000 boys and girls in the different activities that they run. New schools will be opening in the next few weeks in Lusaka, as described above, and in Nara (Japan).