FC Barcelona Unveils First Bar�a Experience Center In China With The Presence Of Eric Abidal And Juliano Belletti

Board member Didac Lee, CEO
�scar Grau, technical secretary Éric Abidal and ex player Juliano Belletti
participate in the opening ceremony of the complex in Hainan.
 
The club announce that they are working on a visit from the first team to
the facilities on the island of Hainan during the 2019 summer tour.

 

HAIKOU,
HAINAN, CHINA – Media OutReach – 18
November 2018 – The Barça
Experience on Hainan Island in China is now a reality after the opening
ceremony was held today at Mission Hills Centerville in Haikou.

12 kids from the Barca Academy Pro in Haikou help to open the Barca Experience with a giant jersey. Pictured (Back Row: Left to right) Juliano Belletti, Liu Xifu, Gao Yuanyi, Didac Lee, Tennerl Chu, Oscar Grau, Eric Abidal.

The first Barca Experience outside of Spain has been opened in Hakou, Hainan Island, China in partnership with Mission Hills.

Barca Legends, Juliano Belletti and Eric Abidal, were in Haikou for the Opening Ceremony.

Barca Legends, Juliano Belletti and Eric Abidal, celebrate with kids of the Barca Academy Pro.

 

Fans visiting Hainan Province will now be
able to learn more about FC Barcelona, thanks to a venue that includes an
interactive 4,000-square-meter museum and a large megastore, as well as a Barça
Academy Pro with six pitches.

 

The opening ceremony was attended by
several club representatives, including Board member Didac Lee; CEO, Òscar
Grau; technical secretary, Eric Abidal; and ex FC Barcelona player, Juliano
Belletti; together with Tenniel Chu, vice chairman of the Mission Hills Group plus
local authorities and executives from the China Football Association.

 

The Barça Experience Haikou Exhibition Centre —
the first outside of Barcelona in the Club’s 119-year history — is one of the
pillars of a strategic partnership between FC Barcelona and Mission Hills Group,
the first joint venture in the history of the Club.

 

The joint venture between the world’s most
famous football club and the world’s largest golf facility — with 22 golf
courses across two locations — was announced in February 2017 with the aim of
helping discover and nurture future athletic talent in China. The project includes an FC
Barcelona Experience area measuring 4,000 square meters, a 900-square-meter
Megastore, an area for a future restaurant, and a Barça Academy Pro that has
been operating since the summer of 2017.

 

Dídac Lee announced that Barça is working
with the intention of having the first team visit the Haikou facilities during
the 2019 summer tour. The team have a preseason trip to China and Japan scheduled,
as part of the globalization and brand expansion strategy that is part of the
current mandate’s Strategic Plan.

 

After the official opening ceremony, both
parties along with local authorities visited the Barça Experience, a 4,000-square-metre
facility that is the largest museum space and experience for any football club
outside of its own country. It is conceived to be interactive and offer digital
experiences to the fans that visit it, and has a trophy area, a virtual reality
zone that lets the fan travel to Camp Nou, large screens where videos of
historic sporting moments are projected, a playing area with different
activities involving taking penalties against Ter Stegen and finding historic
images and much more – always staying faithful to the style of play that has
made Barça a world leader in football.

 

The trademarks of being ‘more than a club’
are also present, with explanations about everything that Barça does differently
to any other club in the world.

Haikou’s Barça Experience project is located in a strategic area on the
tropical Hainan Island with great environmental sustainability. It is not
industrialized; it is a great sporting destination and a recognized tourist
spot for the Chinese in the south of the country.

 

Visit to the Barça Academy Pro

 

The delegation also visited the Barça
Academy Pro, at facilities located around twenty minutes from Centreville
within the 22-square-kilometer Mission Hills Haikou resort. It has been a
training center since 2017. Since then, more than 1,200 children have
participated in the different programs organized with the same methodology as
Barça schools, in facilities that include six training pitches with the
capacity for a thousand athletes. In this period of time, more than 5,000 young
people from Haikou city have also been trained by coaches from the Barça
Academy in different campaigns to promote football in local schools.

Éric Abidal and Juliano Belletti ran a workshop with the boys and girls of the
academy, taking part in an activity called ‘2 against 60’, in which 60 children
from the school faced them in a game.

 

Statements
from Dídac Lee, FC Barcelona Board Member:

 

“Today we open a Barça Experience
center and a store that will allow us to get closer to Barça fans in China. We
know that the Chinese interest in football is growing day by day in the same
way that their interest in Barça does. This center will help football fans who
come to the beautiful island of Hainan to spend some unforgettable moments in a
unique place. We are sure that the more we get to know each other, the more we
will love each other. All this can be seen in detail at this Barça Experience center.
We want all fans to feel part of the Barça family that consists of partners,
supporters groups, fans, players and partners like Mission Hills.”

 

Statements
from Tenniel Chu, Vice Chairman of Mission Hills Group:

 

“Football is the biggest sport in the
world and the most popular in China. The country has about 200 million fans and
more than 10 million people actively play the sport. The Barça Experience,
along with our Barça Academy Pro, will inspire a new generation of football
fans in China. Through our partnership, Barça and Mission Hills are supporting
the Government’s vision for China to have 50 million children and adults
playing football by 2020 — with 20,000 training centers and 70,000 pitches
across the country — and potentially to bring a future FIFA World Cup to China.”