Join on WhatsApp
Join on Telegram
Rabat – Spanish football club Valencia CF has decided on the city of Marrakech as a location for its first football academy in Africa.
Leaders of the Spanish club made the announcement during a press conference held on Monday, February 17, in Marrakech.
The academy aims to detect young talents, aged between 5-18 years, from the Marrakech-Safi region. It will provide professional football training according to modern sports systems and programs.
The new establishment will use the Grand Stadium of Marrakech as its central facility.
Licensed trainer Enzo Aliaga will be the head of the academy’s technical management. Aliaga has worked at the club’s academy for more than 10 years.
During the press conference, the director of the Valencia CF Academy, Luis Martinez, expressed his great joy in launching this new project in Morocco, one of the leading African countries in the field of football.
“As a club, we want to help the youngest to develop according to the Valencia CF methodology,” he added, thanking sports management company DK Pro Sports for partnering up with the club on the project.
The main objective of the academy is to discover football talents in Marrakech and its region and to conclude partnerships with football clubs of the city, such as the Kawkab of Marrakech (KACM), the city’s largest club, continued Martinez.
In addition to Spanish executives, the academy will hire Moroccan trainers who will follow the methodology and training strategy put in place by the technical director and the official trainer of the academy.
According to Martinez, Morocco is known for the quality of players it trains and is reputed to be a fertile ground for talent. The training programs of the Spanish club will adapt to suit the needs of the Moroccan players.
Meanwhile, the manager of international projects at Valencia CF, Borja Eroles, said that the club’s youth training school’s effectiveness over the years is reflected in the number of players who join the first team.
Eroles explained that the choice of Morocco to host the club’s academy is based on the country’s football culture and the reputation of its players for their technique.
The new academy is the largest addition in the international network of Valencia CF. The Spanish club has inaugurated several academies in Japan, the US, Canada, Portugal, Italy, the UK, and Greece, among other countries.
The international network helps Valencia CF to broaden its methodology and project its image over the world, added Eroles.
The co-director and founder of DK Pro Sports, Valencia CF’s Moroccan partner in the project, Khalid Chagna, reiterated that the academy intends to offer young people the opportunity to develop as football players according to the methodology of Valencia CF, a club characterized by the good quality of its school.
Moroccan players are very similar to Spanish ones, said Chagna. However, Moroccans do not have the same opportunities to develop as Spaniards, that is what the new project aims to solve, he continued.
The project will start in Marrakech, but there is the potential to open similar academies in other Moroccan cities, with the ambition of establishing the Valencia CF academy as a reference in the country in the long term, revealed the businessman.
On Sunday, February 23, the academy is set to organize an open day at the Grand Stadium of Marrakech for children and teenagers wishing to enroll.
