FC Barcelona to train 1000 footballers in Mumbai from Sept

Spanish football club FC Barcelona, that is famous for training football legend Lionel Messi, has launched its FCBEscola Football Schools in Mumbai, the European club said in a statement on Thursday.

The training at the FCB's Football Schools will commence in mid-September at the Don Bosco High School in Matunga and St Dominic Savio High School in suburban Andheri.

The schools will cater to over 1,000 budding footballers. The club had held its first five-day camp in Mumbai back in 2013, where over 200 young footballers had participated.

The schools will be under the supervision of FCBEscola Project Director Albert Moratalla, the son of FC Barcelona legend Josep Moratalla, who was involved in the initial stages of the FCBEscola India project.

Albert will be selecting, educating and mentoring local coaches in inculcating the FCB methodology and values.

"It is not going to be a camp but a year-long programme.  We give a lot of value to our partners and are very selective about it. Barca and our values coincided so did Don Bosco's values. So, it was a good mix of both, the infrastructure was good, they have good footballers produced by them and the main thing was numbers," Anupama Jain, Director at Conscient Football, told reporters here.

"So the capacity is about 500 footballers in each centre. We keep around 10 per cent of scholarships all across depending on the players we get and we are focusing on the age category between 6 and 18 years," she added.

"We have shared the infrastructure (with Don Bosco) and they are helping us with the facilities," said Jain.