Real Madrid football club has denied a local media report on Wednesday that it has agreed to train 225 Chinese youngsters and has already begun work with 24 Under-14 players in the Spanish capital.
Diario AS said Real had signed a contract with the company "Soxna", which on their official website is described as "the company appointed by Real Madrid for the development of the football schools of the Real Madrid Foundation in China" and club Guangzhou Evergrande, with whom Real signed a collaboration agreement in 2011, Xinhua reported on Wednesday.
Carrying the report, the Spanish sports newspaper Diario AS even published photos of the contract which it said was signed in China on August 11, 2014. In the contract, Real expresses its "cooperation for the development of international football players to a high-level".
However, Wednesday afternoon saw Real issue a statement that read: "Any football schools that Soxna and Evergrande have in Spain were created without the activities of Real Madrid."
Real said they had sent a negative reply when asked by create a school in Madrid.
"This is because the creation of an academy to bring non-resident Chinese children to Spain to link them to clubs' youth academy activities is in conflict with FIFA regulations," it said, adding that both Madrid and Evergrande could face sanctions if this happened.
Article 19a of the FIFA Stature for the protection of minors says: "all clubs that operate an academy with which they have a relationship of law and/or of economic ties shall notify the presence of minors who attend the academy to the federation in which the academy operates."
