EVERTON BUILD BRIDGES TO FAR EAST

Club chiefs gave the go-ahead to the proposal last week and so a club delegation has flown out for a two week tour of four Chinese cities – Guangzhou, Nanning, Shanghai and Beijing are on the party's agenda. The party consists of Community Programme Director, Ted Sutton, along with Chief Recruitment Officer, Phil Cannon, and also Derek Hatton.

Chairman, Bill Kenwright gave his consent to the plans, making Everton the first football club in Britain to have links with China.

The club is keen to recruit players from the Far East, which is seen as an untapped market for football.

Everton's community programme director, Ted Sutton was in an upbeat and optimistic mood as he looked ahead to excessive access to promising youngsters in an up and coming football nation.

“This is a great opportunity for us. Football is big in China but it still remains an untapped market as far as the Premiership is concerned. No other club has done anything like this in the Far East - we would be leading the way and, from the commercial aspect, China is untapped,” said Sutton.

Players selected for the Academy in China would be given school lessons in the morning with football in the afternoon. The more promising players would then be offered the chance to make the move over to Goodison Park, Merseyside to be coached alongside home grown talent.

Mr Sutton, who coached former Everton stars Francis Jeffers, Michael Ball and Danny Cadamarteri, added: "You get a feel when a player will make it, you can just tell. We would never dream of bringing people over if we didn't think they could make the grade. There's no timescale but if we find all the building blocks are in place things could be up and running quickly.

"But we are not rushing in. We can't put the good name of Everton to just anything, it has to be right."

While Everton expand their youth development links abroad, in a new and exciting venture, the youth scene on Merseyside is looking up too. The existing youth headquarters at Bellefield and the youth academy site in Netherton are to be sold in order to fund a new multimillion pound complex in Liverpool. Plans to build a world class training base in the city for Everton Football Club, such as this, are under discussion.

With Lincoln City Football Club rumoured to be building a link with a Malaysian football club and with Everton and Lincoln under an alliance agreement, the two clubs may prosper considerably from connections with the Far East. Negotiations continue…