Almost 600,000 euros in scholarships for playing soccer and studying in the USA.

He Draft of North American Universities held last February in A Coruña included the distribution of almost 600,000 euros in scholarships to six boys who will play soccer and study in different educational centers in the United States. These young people, who combined studies and football in four youth categories and two modest ones from Galicia, won two scholarships of 60,000the others two out of 80,000and two more than 150,000 euros study at Southwest Mississippi, Saint Louis, Franklin Pierce and Saint Francis universities during the next academic year.

Organized by the City Council of A Coruña, and in this edition limited to young people from A Coruña, the draft collaborated with Export Players, founded by a former athlete Adrian Lopez, Writer, as a platform to help athletes who want to start their career abroad. “It was an event that produced a very important economic impact, but we want it to continue to grow so that there are no scholarships that families may find unacceptable,” says the former soccer player.

Make studies compatible

This is already in preparation for next year, for which there is already interest from new young people who were left out of last year for various reasons. Draftbut what do they want in order to balance their studies and playing football at universities in the United States and Canada.

After two successful editions held at the O Roxo field in Cerceda, and the last one in the sports town of A Torre, in A Coruñahe Draft from North American universities intends to promote the campaign to the North American centers of women’s soccer players next year as well. In addition, another goal would be to cover more sports, such as basketball and volleyball.

“Universities in the United States are heavily promoting women’s sports in all areas. In addition, they already have a large number of male athletes in American football, and equality laws oblige them to give scholarships to the same number of girls and boys, so in other sports they have to look for more women than men,” says Piscu. The edition held in A Coruña had is the first time around a small women’s soccer matchalthough in the end the six scholarships distributed were taken away by the athletes.

The event held last February was attended by trainers from seven prestigious North American educational centers who were delighted with the city. Even some of those universities were interested in keeping some in A Coruña the stay of their academy teams, in a period when those countries cannot train outdoors due to bad weather. “The idea is to support them in this sense as well, because they really appreciate the work that is being done here and are delighted with the guys who traveled there from Galicia,” says Adrián López.