Real Madrid opens first British football school in Croydon
Real Madrid is opening its first British football school in south London to find the next Cristiano Ronaldo.
Emilio Butragueño, who played for the Spanish club in the 1980s and 90s will open the new centre at The Cedars School.
The Real Madrid Foundation, the club's charitable arm, already runs similar schools elsewhere in the world but the link with The Cedars School will be the first Real Madrid Foundation Soccer School in the UK.
Butragueño is due to open the school this afternoon. The former striker is now Real Madrid's director of institutional relations and scored 123 goals in 341 games for Madrid and appeared in two World Cups for Spain.
The project is a partnership between the Foundation, The Cedars and Football for Unity, a non-profit pro-football organisation, with the support of the Kinetic Foundation, a Croydon sports charity that was set up in the wake of the riots in 2011.