Real Madrid Foundation to open football school in Baku
By Nazrin Gadimova
Azerbaijan's Ministry of Youth and Sports jointly with Real Madrid Foundation (Fundación Real Madrid) will present a social project on the protection of children's health on June 20.
The main goal of the project, "Protecting children's health: children's attraction to sports, and their integration to the society", is to create the first social football school in Baku on the basis of the social sports model of Real Madrid Foundation.
The project is implemented under the cooperation agreement signed on April 29, 2013. The signing ceremony, which was held in the Santiago Bernabeu stadium's Salon Real, was presided by Enrique Sanchez, Executive Vice-President of Real Madrid Foundation, Ismayil Ismayilov, Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports of Azerbaijan, and Altay Efendiyev, Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Spain.
"We hope to have the new school operating at the start of the upcoming 2013-2014 season, which will benefit 100 boys and girls, who will be educated in values through football," Sanchez said, referring to the values which are very important for their personal development such as team spirit, teamwork, effort and overcoming problems.For his part, Ismayilov thanked Real Madrid Foundation for its role in the project and expressed hope that "this cooperation will also greatly help to popularize football in this country".
The project will run for four years and the first year provides activity of the social football school based on the specialized nationwide youth football school Veten.
Ismayilov, as well as Real Madrid Foundation's Victor de Arce, representatives of the Ministry of Education and the Youth Fund under the President of Azerbaijan, Azeridmanservis, Standard Insurance, which are the main partners of the project, as well as representatives of the Association of Football Federations of Azerbaijan (AFFA), governmental and non-governmental organizations and the media, will attend the presentation of the project.
Under the project, Real Madrid Foundation continues to expand its presence in Europe with its eighth school, in a country with a large international presence, which is open to sports and is to host the inauural European Games in 2015.