Bartomeu: “FC Barcelona wants to create a women’s soccer team in the United States”

Josep Maria Bartomeu attended a meeting of Spanish press correspondents based in the United States, which was held after the opening ceremony of the new offices in New York and at which he was accompanied by first vice-president Jordi Cardoner and vice-presidents Jordi Mestre and Manel Arroyo.

Afterwards, in an interview with Barça TV, Bartomeu described the club’s interest in women’s soccer, a very important sport in this region. This is a circumstance that FC Barcelona would like to exploit in order to boost its profile in the United States. He explained that one of the club’s targets is to “create a team that can take part in the National Women's Soccer League” in the form of a franchise “that will help us to promote the club”. But that’s not the only sports project that FC Barcelona has in mind for North America. The president added that in the future Barça is also proposing “the creation of a futsal team to compete in the local leagues”.

Search for sponsors and expansion of FCB Escola

Apart from strictly sporting matters, Bartomeu also stressed the club’s focus on charity and education. “One of the goals is to set up projects with the Foundation and to establish a broad network of FCB Escola soccer schools to help to project the club’s name around the territory”. These centers will play a key role in expanding the club in the country, whereby the “growth plan is mainly based on the search for sponsors and our FCB Escola schools”. The club currently has one FCBEscola in Florida, and another is to be opened over the next few days in Charlotte. All of these projects “will help us to get even closer to our fans” said the president.

As for FC Barcelona’s relations with other sports organizations, Bartomeu cited the existing synergies with Major League Soccer (MLS) “to help to promote the game in this territory”. In parallel, the club is also in contact with LaLiga for the same reasons, and in this regard “we have engaged in talks with Raúl González, the ambassador for LaLiga in the United States and with its president, Javier Tebas, in order to undertake this partnership”.

The meeting with the Spanish media was held after the cocktail reception at the Mad46 restaurant on the rooftop of the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, with its splendid views of Manhattan. The reception was attended by over a hundred guests, including former Barça players Ronaldinho, Hristo Stoichkov and David Villa, and prestigious Catalan oncologist Josep Baselga.