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The Football Association has been criticised for its standards of governance in recent years and one of its most controversial decisions was the attempt to build a national training centre near Burton upon Trent modelled on France's successful Clairefontaine academy. Ideas do not always transfer well across national boundaries and the 350-acre site has been a drain on the FA's resources. When Brian Barwick became FA chief executive at the beginning of the year, his initial reaction was to mothball the project until Lord Burns completed his structural review of the FA. With his report now out, it's make your mind up time at Soho Square. The idea lost its appeal when its two biggest supporters, the former technical directors, Howard Wilkinson and Les Reed, left the organisation. Premiership clubs have never been keen, seeing it as a threat to their own youth academies. The project has been effectively ignored for two years. Doing nothing is not really an option as the FA would be criticised for leaving twelve first class pitches dormant. The £20m the FA has already spent on buying and developing the land would be dead money. The resale value of the land is £4.75m but it is in the green belt and the ten undersoil heated grass pitches and two artificial pitches would need to be returned to their natural state. What seems to be favoured is a less ambitious project that would be used for training by the England team, but would primarily be a commercial venue used by players at all levels, e.g., one could envisage corporate away days where employees and guests would puff away on the pitches used by the national side. There is also some talk of non-football uses such as conferences but this is a market nearing saturation with many well regarded established providers (perhaps the dog walkers currently kept away by two security guards could exercise their dogs away from the pitches for a fee). Some money will have to be spent on providing facilities such as a gymnasium and a swimming pool. At present, the site just has two huts on it. To make all this work, the ideal solution would be to find a commercial partner for a joint venture, but that may not be too easy when the economy is slowing and discretionary spending is falling. The FA also has to find time to focus on the completion of the Wembley stadium project. The current leadership thus has to sort out problems it has inherited from previous administrations.
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