FCBEscola Lagos celebrated their official opening on Saturday in the presence of FC Barcelona director Pau Vilanova and the Project Director of the FCBEscola, Franc Carbó. The school in Nigeria has been active since last September and this Monday training for the students for the second half of the season will continue after the recent break for the holidays. The FCBEscola in Lagos is the very first to have come via an official supporters’ club, the FC Barcelona Lagos Supporters’ Club. It is also the first in Sub-Saharan Africa and the third on the continent after the schools already in operation in Cairo, Egypt and Casablanca in Morocco.

The official opening ceremony for the school took place at the Teslim Bagolun sports centre in the Nigerian city saw Barça representative Vilanova and Carbó speak, as did local representatives and the director of the Local Project FCBEscola Lagos, Bernat Villa. The event comprised of examples of local dance, jugglers and a variety of activities for the whole family in a designated ‘fan zone.’

The FCBEscola is the FC Barcelona footballing school aimed at boys and girls which attempts to give its pupils all round training. This model, exported on an international scale, attempts to extend the Barça brand and publicise the working philosophy of the Club and its values to the rest of the world.

The FCBEscoles work via their own particular model, based on the Barça methodology which includes a creative and attacking brand of football and the promotion of positive values such as respect, effort, ambition, teamwork and modesty with proven results. The administration of the International FCBEscoles is the responsibility of the FC Barcelona technical director who oversees the programme which is designed by the Sporting Area at FC Barcelona.

With the school in Lagos and the presentation of the Mission Hills project in China, FC Barcelona now have 26 FCBEscoles, more than 160 campuses and 50 clinics with a presence in more than 50 countries with more than 40,000 children taking part in activities promote by the FCB Escola. During the next few weeks the Club will open another school in Guatemala.

Pau Vilanova, FC Barcelona director

“The synergies between the Supporters’ Clubs and the FCBEscola continue to help expand and grow the Barça brand around the world. The FCBEscola Lagos has become the first such school to come about through the initiative of a Barça Supporters’ Club.”

Franc Carbó, project director of the FCBEscola:

“The FCBEscola Lagos is a strategic key within the project given it is the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the first few months of its existence, more than 400 boys and girls are attending and new training programmes and a system of grants are on the agenda.”