Villas-Boas to Menezes: “CAR is vital for FC Porto” | OneFootball

André Villas-Boas presented the project for FC Porto’s new High Performance Center in Vila Nova de Gaia and placed it at the heart of the club’s future strategy. The Porto president spoke about infrastructural growth, better conditions for professionals, and a new dynamic around Olival, without overlooking the role of the local authority in shaping this path. Above all, he left no room for doubt and assured: “It is a fundamental step for FC Porto to grow in infrastructure terms.”

At a time when FC Porto is looking at development off the pitch with the same ambition with which it has always sought to win on it, André Villas-Boas brought a clear message to the Gaia city council: the new HPC is not just a construction project, it is a structural piece in the club’s vision. In presenting the project to Luís Filipe Menezes, the president framed the initiative as the continuation of a path built from Olival and now projected onto a new scale.

In detailing the importance of the High Performance Center, Villas-Boas connected FC Porto’s past, present, and future, insisting on the idea of continuity and the strengthening of the club’s working base. The president spoke about the symbolic and practical weight of Olival and why Gaia once again emerged as the natural choice.

“For us it is an absolutely fundamental infrastructure. We spent 23 years at the Olival Training and Sports Development Centre, now named the Jorge Costa CTFD, and in those 23 years FC Porto reached an unprecedented level of national and international success. This is the continuation of good work that we want to develop, and we chose the Municipality of Gaia because of its proximity to a training center that has already given us so much,” he said. “We want the High Performance Center to give us even more, so for us it was an obvious choice, one that will allow FC Porto to grow in infrastructure terms and offer its professionals the best conditions to continue performing. It is a fundamental step for FC Porto to grow in infrastructure terms, and this project is decisive for us. I want to thank President Luís Filipe Menezes for having been involved in the creation of our first Training Center, but also in the creation of FC Porto’s High Performance Center in the Municipality of Gaia. May it bring success to both institutions.”

In the president’s words, the HPC appears less as a break and more as the logical continuation of a growth cycle. The project is rooted in a history of success and, at the same time, is seen as a tool to sustain the demands of the future.

By broadening the focus beyond the building itself, Villas-Boas outlined a new sporting and human hub around Olival. The relocation of the academy and the concentration of the professional teams help explain the scale of the impact he expects for the area.

“FC Porto’s High Performance Center will bring more people into the municipality, and there are projects we want to improve, starting with access routes, so that Porto supporters can enjoy the new environment of the Jorge Costa CTFD and the HPC. It is important to remember that our entire academy will move to Olival and that all of our professional teams will be here, at the HPC,” he explained. “That means there will be more Porto supporters and more people on the move.”

More than an isolated infrastructure project, it is presented as a central hub, capable of reorganizing movement, presence, and daily life in the surrounding area. Villas-Boas’s vision combines performance, identity, and closeness to the fans, but it runs into one practical condition: access.

It was precisely on that point that the president stressed the need for institutional coordination. When speaking about access routes, he pointed to the importance of Gaia City Council and Infraestruturas de Portugal as indispensable partners.

“Gaia City Council is fundamental in creating access to the HPC, as are Infraestruturas de Portugal, and we wanted to draw attention to that need, which will benefit the Olival area and everyone in the surrounding parishes, such as Avintes, Lever, Pedroso...,” he stressed. “All of this is necessary so that we can make the most of the infrastructure we will have installed here.”

What emerges, then, is a clear picture of Porto’s ambition for the new center: it is not enough to build the structure, it must be integrated into the area and made to function on the scale of its promise. Villas-Boas presented the HPC as a decisive asset for FC Porto, but also as a project that requires connection, mobility, and the capacity to welcome more people around Olival.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.