First FCB Escola Campus in Turkey

CLUB

On Monday in Istanbul, FC Barcelona presented its first FCB Escola project in Turkey, which consists of the organisation of two football campuses that will be held next July and November in the Turkish capital

The project, financed and sponsored by the telecommunications company Avea, will cater for a total of 240 children selected from different places around the country

La presentació del Campus a Turquia.

20,000 have already participated

More than 20,000 children have already enjoyed FC Barcelona campuses organised by FCB Escola around the world. Among others, this summer features campuses in such places as Los Angeles and Florida in the United States, Singapore, Delhi, Cali and Rio de Janeiro.

Former FCB player Josep Moratalla, along with the director of FCB Escola, Xevi Marcé, with the participation of Avea Vice President of Technology Coşkun Şahin, were responsible for presenting on Monday in Istanbul these two official campuses that will be held next July and November and will host some 240 children aged between 9 and 14 years.

4,500 aspirants

They will be selected out of a trial process, supervised by the managers of FCB Escola, which will involve the participation of 4,500 aspirants from different cities around the country.

The cities chosen for this selection process are Izmir, Istanbul and Van. As fate would have it, the latter is a city that was recently hit by a heavy earthquake and some of the children were affected by the catastrophe.

This first campus will be held on the facilities of the Turkish Federation of Schools Sport in Istanbul. The children’s stay will be financed by grants from Avea, FC Barcelona’s sponsors in the region.

Coşkun Şahin reminding Avea also took 18 young footballers from such different cities like Hakkari, Diyarbakır, Samsun, İzmir, etc. to training at FC Barcelona premises, within the scope of the “Kids of Turkey, Stars of the World” project, stated that they brought FCBEscola Camp Avea to Turkey, in order to allow more young talents to benefit from the youth system.

An important step taken for the future of Turkish football

Şahin, mentioning Avea will reach the real success when the football geniuses who will be discovered at FCBEscola Camp Avea, will leave marks in the future of Turkish and world football, told: “As a company having the vision to develop the technologies of the future, we adopted cooperating with the best brands of the world in order to create value for our country, as a principle. As it is the case in our cooperation with one of the world’s most well-known institutions in technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we are cooperating with the best football team of the world, FC Barcelona. With this cooperation, we aim to bring richness and a different point of view to the sports academy mentality in Turkey. We totally believe that scientific and proven methods will give a new impulse to Turkish football. It is an equality of opportunity created for the youth of Turkey. I don’t want our young talents missing this opportunity”.

Şahin, stating the selections will be carried out in 3 different cities – İstanbul, İzmir and Van – in order to create equality of opportunity, explained they made positive discrimination when choosing Van as one of the three cities. Şahin spoke the following on the subject: “After the earthquake experienced last year, we saw the realization of the dreams of our youth in Van as our priority and we added Van to the list of cities where selections will be made. Within this framework, we will also initiate our first selections in Van.”