Jorge Valdano was responsible for leading the School until June 2009 but, on returning to the club as general director with the return of Florentino, gave the responsibility to Butragueño: "Jorge proposed me it and I did not hesitate an instant. We work with almost 800 kids from five continents and the level of training is tremendous. Only River Plate have something similar in football. Even in that, Real Madrid is a pioneer ...".
The center of operations of the Real Madrid School is located in the "Universidad Europea de Madrid" (Villaviciosa de Odon, Madrid). The teaching staff is top qualification (30% of them are foreigners, meeting 24% of foreign students on a total of 744 enrolled). The partnership with Real Madrid allows students to meet Valdebebas Sport City activities (Physiotherapy, Sports Medicine, Rehabilitation and Injury Prevention uses the facilities of the first white team), as well as Bernabéu Stadium.
Butragueño baptizes as "white week" the most special days for students in the School of Madrid. "For a whole week they access to the facilities at the Bernabeu Stadium and have direct access to executives of the club. They saw how marketing or communication departments work".
There is also a Master "Detection and Development of Talent in Football", headed by Miguel Pardeza. Other Masters which complete the program are: "Management of Sport Organizations", "Sports Law", the Master in "Business and Entertainment", "Training and Sports Nutrition" and "Physical Activity and Health".
Also the Real Madrid Chair has been created, which includes support for research. In 2010 represented an investment of 150,000 euros. Programs include visits to London (future Olympic venues) and Ajax facilities devoted to its "quarry". Butragueño says: "In 2012, we will have one thousand students".
Apart from the modern "Universidad Europea de Madrid", the club has already opened its schools in Africa (Morocco), South America (Chile, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador), Central America (Mexico and Costa Rica) and Europe (Germany, Turkey and Cyprus). A total of eleven schools integrated into the university development program supervised by Butragueño, general director of the College, and Fernando Tomé who is the academic director.
The success of recent academic years and the requests that white club receives to join Real Madrid University, will force Butragueño to open in coming dates two new schools; in the United States (Chicago) and one in Malaysia, which will be the first in Asia. Butragueño explains the power of seduction of the project: "We were recently called from Singapore and there are offers of highly developed countries from the viewpoint of university, such as France, Italy or England. For Madrid is a luxury to be part of this".
