In the increasingly commodified football industry yet there is a hidden place for romance. It is in Farum (Denmark), it is called Right to Dream Park and it is the home of FC Nordsjaelland.
Gender equality, quality education, the reduction of inequalities, the end of poverty ... are common bargains in a club with a pioneering management model based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
"It is a good way for kids to understand the areas in which football can help make a better world," Phil Radley, legal advisor to the 'FCN', assures at the front page during the TransferRoom Summit.That fight for equality has led Nordsjaelland players to wear names of celebrities (Beyoncé, Serena Williams, Greta Thunberg, Rosa Parks, VigdÃs Finnbogadóttir ...) against Copenhagen to claim their importance on International Women's Day .
The shirts were auctioned after the match and the profits went to the club's women's division. "We defend equal opportunity between the sexes," Radley insists.
"Our philosophy is to develop the individual, not the footballer. We firmly believe in education outside the field as a way to promote the values ​​we defend . We think that good people have more options to become great players," Radley continues.
An educational system that has direct consequences on the lawn. The CIES Football Observatory recognizes Nordsjaelland as the youngest team in Europe - its starting eleven has an average of 22.4 years - ahead of the Bulgarian Energetik-BGU (22.5) and the Slovak FCDAC1904 (22.8).
Eighteen of the 25 players on the squad are under the age of 21 and 12 are under the age of 19! "Our goal is to create a team made up only of players from our Academies," says Radley. All this without ceasing to compete. The Wild Tigers, who won the only league in their history in 2012, finished third in 17-18 and sixth in 18-19.
Nonprofit
The quality of the players made in FCN is beyond doubt. They are, according to CIES, the 36th team that has exported the most footballers (31) to the main European Leagues . He is tied with Valencia and beats, for example, Espanyol, Real Sociedad or City (30). Sales of Emre Mor to Dortmund, Lobotka and Mathias Jensen to Celta, Skov Olsen to Bologna ... have reported more than 40 million to the coffers of the Nordsjaelland, according to Transfermarkt, in the past four seasons. "The fact that the property is a non-profit association means that all that money is reinvested so that young people have more opportunities to fulfill their dreams," says Radley.
And it is that in Accra (Ghana), 7,968 kilometers from Farum, lies Right to Dream ('Right to dream'), the cornerstone on which the club is based . This NGO, which has become one of the best Academies in Africa, bought the club in January 2016.
An unimaginable fact when Tom Vernon, former Manchester United scout and now president of Nordsjaelland, founded it in 1999. " In 2012 it became the first African Academy to be accessed by women. 70 of the 170 children born to the Right to Dream received scholarships in the best schools in the US and England worth more than $ 40 million and 48 have started a career as professional footballers, "boasted the FCN, which has eight Ghanaians on staff, in 2018.
Another 'move', Common Goal, has made The Wild Tigers an even more unique club, if possible. Nordsjaelland can boast of being the first soccer team to join the solidarity initiative led by Juan Mata. "We have decided to dedicate 1% of all our income to Common Goal . The ten people who run the club will also donate 1% of their salaries and more than half of the staff (players and administrators) have decided to join [voluntarily] "They announced after joining in May 2018." Mata is an extraordinary person. Hopefully he is a coach and his first job is here at Nordsjaelland, "jokes Radley.
The FCN-patented model has already had imitators. Various European clubs have visited Farum to learn how a competitive team can be managed in compliance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals . Something that does not seem to matter to Radley: "We are proud. We do not want it to be something exclusive. Hopefully more clubs will join the same idea. It would be a good thing for football ... and for the world."
Source: Marca