January 26 – FC Porto have further extended their footprint in Africa, announcing the launch of a new academy project in Mozambique as part of a broader strategy that blends talent development with long-term brand positioning.
The initiative, branded ‘Dragon Force Black Bulls Mozambique’, is a partnership with Associação Black Bulls, a club founded in 2017 and twice winners of the Moçambola, Mozambique’s top domestic league. It becomes Porto’s third academy venture on the continent, following existing operations in Zimbabwe and Cape Verde, and revives a previous collaboration that ran between 2017 and 2019.
Mozambique is being folded into Porto’s wider internationalisation model rather than treated as a standalone outpost. In southern Africa the club has run FC Porto World Camps in South Africa, using Johannesburg and Cape Town as hubs for early-stage scouting and brand exposure.
Operations at Dragon Force Black Bulls Mozambique are scheduled to begin next month, comprised of a programme covering youth training, coach education, the rollout of Porto’s technical methodology and formalised systems for talent identification and monitoring. The club have said that the first visible activity will be a three-day talent identification camp, scheduled for February 20–22 at the Black Bulls training centre.
“This is about executing the international expansion plan we set out,” said FC Porto president André Villas-Boas. “Bringing FC Porto’s knowledge, methodology and values to different geographies through credible partners and sustainable structures.”
For Black Bulls, the partnership is positioned as a route into the international transfer market. “FC Porto’s know-how will be decisive not only in improving Mozambican talent, but also in increasing our capacity to export players who are better prepared for international markets,” said club president Luís Junaide Lalgy.
Porto’s interest is also commercial. Around 8% of the club’s Instagram following comes from Mozambique, underlining an existing connection that the academy aims to turn into a long-term development and brand asset rather than a short-term scouting exercise.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at [email protected]