A team representing the Real Madrid Foundation travelled to Baghdad to present the Educational Football Program developed in collaboration with the Nabaa Al-Salman Group, which will be launched in Iraq from this season onwards.
The Minister of Youth and Sport, Ahmed Al-Mubarqa; joined by the representative of the Prime Minister of Iraq, Khalid Qubayyan; and the president of the Iraqi Football Association, Adnan Dirjal; welcomed Carlos Escudero, trustee of the Real Madrid Foundation; Íñigo Arenillas, head of the Foundation’s social and sports projects in Africa and the Middle East, and Hayder Salman, executive director of the Nabaa Al-Salman Group, who promotes the Foundation’s programme in the country, at a large event organised at the Alshaab Stadium. Carlos Escudero showed his appreciation for the strong interest in developing this educational football programme, which will certainly be a success thanks to the commitment of the institutions involved.
The sports and educational programme aimed at children from 5 to 17 years of age will take place in the Alshaab Stadium’s sports facilities, a refurbished historic football stadium with classrooms, offices, changing rooms and a class A football pitch, with the support of the Nabaa Al-Salman Group, an Iraqi consortium that works in the educational and health fields. The Real Madrid Foundation will provide training in its unique methodology to the coaches and educators as well as the management and administrative staff required for the development of the project.
The agreement with Nabaa Al-Salman Group foresees that this programme will be the first of several lines of educational and sporting collaboration for children in the country. In addition to educating in values and promoting educational sport, these activities will be used to contribute to the sustainability of the social projects in the region that the Foundation develops with different NGOs.
Currently, the Foundation is present in 48 locations in Asia, America, Africa and the Middle East, since its inception. The programme involves a flexible advisory model that adapts to the level of knowledge of each group of students and the educational environment in which it is carried out, by means of the permanent training of local sports coaches and a programme designed by the Foundation with the best educational institutions and schools around the world in the incorporation of football and its values as part of the academic curriculum for girls and boys.
Source: Real Madrid
