http://www1.skysports.com/football/...h-first-premier-league-soccer-school-in-india Liverpool have stepped up their search for talent around the world by launching the first Premier League Soccer School in India. The new centre, located in Pune, opens in January and features full size pitches, classrooms, a gym, canteen, lecture theatre and medical facilities. Two of the club's academy coaches will be based there permanently and Liverpool hope the ground-breaking facility will strengthen the club's ties with Indian fans. Liverpool's head of soccer schools Dan White said: "It is unique. It's the first time that a top-flight club here has worked with a club in India to develop an international academy programme which is year-round on a purpose-built facility. "All of those elements have come together to create an exciting opportunity for us really. "It's not about necessarily finding the next player, it's about every player that comes onto the programme, developing them as players and also as individuals so that we can have more of an impact in terms of the way the club's perceived and what we can do in different parts of the world. "If you look at China as a country we know we've got a lot of fans there and this project is about bringing the club closer to the fans, through the medium of coaching and giving opportunities to young players in and around that region to learn, what we call, to play the Liverpool way." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What do we make of this? PR stunt to increase popularity in Asia or serious hope that we may uncover some talent in an untapped market? With a population of 1billion, there is bound to be some natural talent there, it's just a case of finding it and nuturing it.
I'd rather we got our academy here working better first. Sense a whiff of PR but it's too big an investment just to be a stunt. I'm kind of surprised they chose India given the popularity of LFC in other Asian countries but we'll see. I have to say if this is part of the real quote it's already looking like a bad bit of PR: "If you look at China as a country we know we've got a lot of fans there and this project is about bringing the club closer to the fans, through the medium of coaching and giving opportunities to young players in and around that region to learn, what we call, to play the Liverpool way." Are we building it in India for the Chinese or China for the Indians?
I didn't quite get that bit either... I guess the thinking is, we already have a huge following in China and they sense this will help increase the popularity in India, more so than if it was built in China?
China would have made more sense for me as well, only thing i can think of is do utd already have a foot in the door for finding talent in China? maybe why we chose India as the next best alternative. remember watching question time once and an asian person was trying to make out like not much asian players in the game, and i think he was hinting it was racism the prick, untill thankfully another Asian lad in the audience turned round and said no its because we are ****e( well not them exact words lol but you get the point) hopefully we will find some talent.
