National and international football academies are spreading, but are they genuine? Ghada Abd El-Kader investigates Football has become for millions the gateway to the world of fame and fortune. The sports' money and celebrity status have driven young boys to dream of becoming a soccer star -- many times regardless of their talent. Being a doctor, engineer, pilot or policeman is no longer the only dream of either boys or their fathers. The big sports clubs in Egypt realise this and as such have established their own soccer academies where boys can learn football skills and live the dream. The more famous academies have been set up in Shooting Club, Wadi Degla, Ahli, Barcelona and City. Each academy has its own way of doing things, however, they all share the same goal -- turning young footballers into professional players and delivering them to major football clubs in Egypt and, if possible, abroad. However, some claim that the main aim of these academies is business and the owners making profits. Accordingly, some of these soccer academies in the country were visited to separate fact from fiction. City Cub at Al-Obour, on the outskirts of Cairo is, according to its general manager, the first in Egypt and is one of the five academy branches of AC Milan, the Italian giants and current European champions. The academy, whose professed aim is to create professional footballers, was established four years ago and uses the same logo of AC Milan. A total of 450 players between seven and 12 receive a two-hour training session four days a week applying the same training programme of the mother club. Coaches are foreign and are provided by AC Milan itself. Parents are given dietary and technical instructions to follow alongside the training. Every three months, students submit to trials to see their progress. Club members pay an annual subscription of LE1,450 yearly. Outsiders pay LE2,900. At Wadi Degla Club in Maadi, the aim is similar: to nurture and train a generation of talented football players to allow them to qualify as professionals and serve as the ambassadors for Egyptian football in big-name European and international clubs. Premiership club Arsenal has promised to buy the first player who graduates from the academy or sell him to another international club. The Degla Academy is set up in collaboration with the JMG Academy. JMG is a private football academy founded by Jean-Marc Guillou (JMG) in 1995 to produce young players starting at the age of 12 who would later become the core of their national teams. Guillou is a French ex-footballer and current trainer who played in the 1978 World Cup. He set up his first JMG academy in the Ivory Coast in the early 1990s. Seventy per cent of the Ivory Coast's 2006 World Cup team is reportedly graduates of the JMG academy. Star pupils to come out of the ASEC academy include Kolo Toure, Aruna Dindane, Salomon Kalou, Didier Zokora, Yaya Toure, Emmanuel Eboue and Gilles Yapi. Guillou eventually became the manager, technical director and trainer of ASEC Abidjan, one of the Ivory Coast's and Africa's best football squads. He currently runs a number of football schools in South Africa, Nigeria and Thailand under the name Academy JMG seeking to develop young footballers who are often transferred to European clubs. Ahmed El-Gohari, managing director of the Egyptian branch of the as yet unopened JMG Academy, will begin with 20 children between the ages of 10 to 12. They will be chosen out of 5,000 applicants from various Egyptian governorates by Guillou and assistant national coach Mustafa El-Khrubi who will be technical director of JMG in Cairo and which will follow Guillou's training methods. El-Gohari will keep in touch daily with the Frenchman. Guillou will also pay visits to the academy to see the results. An annual budget of LE3.5 million will be allocated to each child. Ahmed, the son of Egypt's former football coach Mahmoud El-Gohari, explained what he believed to be the real meaning of sports professionalism. "In Egypt we have a misconception of the idea of professionalism. It isn't moving from national club to another. Professionalism is a whole community of professional administration, coaches and sponsors. Professionalism means that football is the only career of the player. In other words, football is his life. The academy will teach football skills and the ethics of soccer, as well as provide education in order to complete the 'triangle of success' for the professional player. "The idea of the academy is totally new in Egypt. We try to explain to their parents that it will be a boarding academy where we offer the students free high-level international education just as if he was going to his own school. On the weekends boys can go home with their families and there is a schedule for visiting the players," El-Gohari said. During the seven years at the academy, the children will get a chance to train abroad in the other branches of the academy and play friendly international games. At the end, they'll move onto another stage -- signing their first professional contract. Every two years, 20 students will be selected to join the academy. FCB Escola Egypt is the first Barcelona football school in the Middle East and the third in the world. It has two branches in Egypt. The first was launched on 1 September 2006 at Al-Rabwa Club at the Sixth of October city before moving to Palm Hills Club. The second branch was launched on 1 March 2007 at Mirage City in Qatameya. Both are owned and managed by the Stryx sports marketing company. Currently, the two branches comprise more than 500 players. The academy accepts both genders from the age of five till 14 in addition to a baby class for four-year-olds who are taught the ABCs of football. There are no conditions for applying. The first two weeks is a probationary period where in every age, the players are divided into three levels: low, medium and high. Each team comprises 12 players making it a total of 72 players per training session. After two weeks, the head coach and an assistant decide whether the student stays or moves on to the next level. Students pay either an annual fee of LE950 or a monthly fee of LE550. Each player receives an hour and a half three times weekly training sessions and is evaluated every three months. Barcelona's scouting team visits the academy twice a year. The season usually starts from September until June. In August, coaches are trained by a Spanish expert from Barcelona on the season's programme. Sherif El-Sadek, managing director of the academy, says the mission "is teaching players how to play football, not to make professional players. Reports from the technical directors to Barcelona FC about the levels of the players are systematic. The academy's logo is that of Barcelona and all training sessions are managed by the Spanish technical directors Rubén Della Morta and Ramon Curto Geira, trained and assigned by Barcelona. The school applies the training curriculum developed by Barcelona for all its schools around the world. According to Morte, "football is a way to show the players how to be good persons and learn some values like teamwork and cooperation. Our mission is to supervise and apply the philosophy of the club and help coaches teach like the system of Barcelona. The Egyptian coaches working with us have good skills and want to learn more. Morte agreed that football "has to be enjoyed." Geira added that one of the main objectives in Barcelona was to create a girls team which one day might come up with somebody like Naomi Bakr, the FCB Escola female star who impressed the Spaniards last year and was invited to train in Spain with her counterparts in the under-14 team. "Under-14, they train with boys as they have the same skills on the pitch. "For decades FC Barcelona has been known as Barça the soccer club," Geira said. "But it is not only a club. It represents a philosophy, a value system, a way of understanding sports and an interpretation of the world in which we live. It emphasises fair play. Although winning is important, we believe that how you win matters. Hence, we demand from everyone involved with Barça -- players, coaches, directors and supporters -- to behave fairly and civil." The Ahli Academy enters its second year. Though the idea was broached in the mid-90s, it only came to light last year. Its branches spread out across the country, in Cairo, Alexandria, Mansoura, Assiut and Sharqia. Its director, ex-Ahli star forward Mohamed Ramadan, says the academy is meant to have an effective presence particularly in the governorates. "Our job is to discover talented footballers in Egypt, teach them football and monitor their studies, ethics and behaviour at home," Ramadan said. Altogether, 230 players aged six to 14 are members of the academy. The fees differ in each branch, starting with LE1,200 to LE1,800 for club members and LE2,800 for non- members. Ramadan said that being a former footballer at Ahli or any other big club is a must if you want to coach at the Ahli academy. "Forty-five talented players who successfully passed a year at the academy joined the juniors school at Ahli Club which is the only road towards the club's first team." Students are divided into groups where they learn mental and miscellaneous skills like attitude, communication, field vision, player movement and fair play, and physical skills like fitness, speed and agility, each according to his age group so that by the age of 18 the player is ready for the big times. Players play matches and championships during the year side by side with the training programme. Abdel-Nabi Ashour, the technical director of all branches of Ahli's soccer academies, said the main advantage of the academy's students is that it gives them the opportunity to join Ahli's football teams. In order to create a mutual relationship between the academy and parents a "Family Day" is held every six weeks during which fathers team up against their sons on the field. The Shooting Club academy was established in July 2007 which makes it the newest in town. It academy accepts children from the age of three to 17. "Every age has a specific programme dependent upon a scientific basis. We also take into consideration the growth period of every age," its technical director, Mahmoud Metwalli, a football professor and instructor in the Egyptian Football Association, said. The academy is only for the members of the club. Its 750 players are divided into three groups. The more talented they are and the more promise they show, the more attention and more training hours they receive. Each month, the player undergoes an evaluation test. In the academy, there is a private school for goalkeepers. "The Shooting club is different from the others in that it is the only academy that accepts three-year-olds," Metwalli said. "Children of this age are very young to hold a ball. We make them love the ball." The football coaching programme at the Shooting Club provides comprehensive coverage not only of the techniques, tactics and training methods of modern football, but sport psychology as well. "The psychological part is very important in order to reach peak performance at crucial moments. Most of our players have problems with this part because they lose control when they are under pressure. Their performance then is very poor," Metwalli said, adding that the academy holds regular meetings between parents and coaches to inform them of their children's progress. Salah Hasabullah, head of sports activities in Shooting Club, says the academy is the cheapest among the lot. "Our subscription fee for the whole year is LE900 including training kits. Our aim isn't to gain profit but to present a good service to the members of the club -- future footballers for the country." Metwalli said the increase in soccer academies in Egypt is a healthy phenomenon. "It is a sign of parents realising the importance of sports for their children. It is also an important aspect in building their personality in the future."
