“"A presence in Thailand will put them in a good position to discover some rough diamonds of Asian talent, and then polish the very brightest back at Belvoir Drive." lots of talent for football came out of thailand then in the past ?”

“A win-win scenario???
good lord..business speak...?
let us all hope that they
"get out of the lift on the same floor"
"sing off the same hymn sheet"
"bat the same ball together"
" have a blue sky approach"
"make work sexy"
( no mention about same pots though)

but, for now let's all start
"thinking outside the box"
.
.....Taxi for Hoos
hoos next ....”

“I don¿t see anything wrong with the new owners using the template of how our successful academy is run to create something similar for the benefit of domestic coaches and players in Thailand. If that¿s an additional bonus to them from their ownership of our club, then fair play to them.

I agree that the problem would be if our own academy was used to develop Asian players that might not be up to the standard of the usual intake purely to please the owners. A presence in Asia should give us an advantage in spotting any quality players there may be there but, with the odd exception, there is probably a very good reason why there are very few Asian players in Europe. They¿re not good enough!

Let¿s not kid ourselves too much about our brand exposure, though. Only the very top clubs in this country ¿ Chelsea, Man Utd and their like ¿ will usually gain an overseas following and that is for the simple reason that they win things. They are established, world famous clubs. By the same token, and this is as close an example as I can think of, which Spanish league club shirts do you see being worn over here other than those for Barcelona and Real Madrid? We¿re just not in that league.

Any increased exposure we do get will come from having star Asian players in our team. Again, to turn it around for an example, how many of us had heard of Grampus Eight before Lineker went to play there? Very few, I¿ll bet, but during that time, even though he didn¿t play very much due to injury, they received regular mentions in the press. We¿ve already made a start at this by recruiting Abe from Japan and, in time, it may well be that others will follow. But let¿s hope that only quality players are brought in who can add something to the team. Otherwise, that limit on non-EU players may prove to be a blessing.”

“A fantastic idea, this reminds me of our link up with Kingfisher East Bengal a few years back and we all know the dividends that paid with all the untapped talent in the Indian game.

Why stop at the pool of talent in Thailand?

There are so many places in Asia destined to produce top football talent, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos¿¿¿¿these countries will be winning world cup¿s with people like ¿Top¿ investing in local talent.

Our lads down at Belvoir Drive must be absolutely delighted they will be able to work with youngsters like this week in week out. I don¿t know how we have managed to produce players like Lineker and Heskey in the past.

Don¿t produce too many world class Thai players though, don¿t forget you can only have 3 non EU players in your starting 11.”