Barça Academy opens first school in Switzerland

FC Barcelona continue to develop sport all around the world via the Barça Academy with the latest school to open next season in Zurich, Switzerland. The academy will be third in Europe, alongside those already set up in Istanbul, Turkey and Budapest, Hungary. 

As such, the native country of FC Barcelona founder Joan Gamper will welcome a permanent centre where more than 150 boys and girls between the ages of seven and thirteen will learn football using the Barça methodology, taking in the Club's values and philosophy, that founding spirit began by the Swiss born Gamper. 

It may be the first academy in the country but Barça has been present in Switzerland since 2014 having organised more than 40 campuses in cities such as Geneva, Zurich and Lugano in which more than 3,000 young footballers have taken part. Many of them have taken part in the Barça Academy World Cup, the tournament which takes place in Barcelona, bringing in young people from the Barça Academies all over the world and this year will celebrate its tenth edition. 

More than 25 Barça Academy projects around the world 

Barça Academy is FC Barcelona's own football school aimed at young people with the mission of providing all round training for the students. This football school model, exported around the world, aims to extend Barça's brand and get across the Club's working values and philosophy. 

The schools function with a singular model, based on the Barça methodology, from the youth teams to the first team, with a creative and attacking style of play and the indispensable teaching of the values of respect, humility, effort, ambition and team work, with proven results. 

Currently, FC Barcelona have 26 Barca Academies around the world. The Barça la Escuela de Barcelona, the Barça Academy Pro sites, managed directly by the Club from a sporting and financial position, in the US in the citites of Miami and New York; Barça Residency Academy Arizona in the US which also looks after the players' academic learning and the other 23 sites across the globe.