In the last few months, FC Barcelona has been making increasing inroads into the continent of Africa as they look to tap into this treasure and recruit the best young talents for their youth ranks.
The most prominent African signing that the Catalans made last year was Mikayil Faye, whom the Blaugranes bought for only €1.5 million from NK Kustosija, before making a good profit on him as they sold him to Rennes for €10.3 million last summer.
Other additions, such as Mamadou Mbacke, David Oduro, and Abdul Aziz Issah, have also joined Barcelona in recent months.
As SPORT has reported, the Catalans have now taken their pursuit of African talent a further notch upwards as they yesterday formalized a collaboration agreement with the Academie Africa Foot of Mali.
A delegation from Barcelona, including Sergi Barjuan and Bernat Villa, who is the Technical Director of Barcelona Academies, traveled to Africa for this purpose. The Blaugranes’ main scout on the continent, Moussa Kone, and the Spanish Ambassador to Mali, Antonio Guillen Hidalgo, were also present at the ceremony.
Under this agreement, the Catalans will provide financial help to the academy, and in exchange, will have preferential rights over some of the highly talented youngsters that come up through their ranks.
Although it was formalized yesterday, this collaboration has been in place for quite some time now, and has already benefitted Barcelona in the form of Ibrahim Diarra. The youngster has already traveled to Catalonia, but had to leave Spain because his visa expired, and now the Catalans are keeping a close eye on his development.
For now, the Blaugranes will have to wait till Diarra turns 18 years of age to complete his signing. But with this formalization of the collaboration, one can expect even more talents like him to be joining the Barcelona youth ranks in the future.
