We could be the new football Mecca

Statistics reveal that 1.5 million people play football in Russia. Our mission is to raise this figure to five to seven million. This will give us a lot of professional football candidates to choose from. The Mini-football for School project, designed to cover the whole country, envisages the establishment of 60,000 children's football clubs to train 13 million children across the country.

Previously there were only 1,350 football clubs, schools and classes for children in Russia, employing 12,000 coaches, 60pc of which did not even have special qualifications, who were training 320,000 kids. Football ground availability across Russia was only 8pc.

In five to seven years, the picture will completely change. By 2010, we expect to have 100 large football centres, each comprising two full-size playing fields and two 20 by 40-metre fields for pre-teen children. The professional Premier League teams will feature players of at least four age groups, trained by these centres.

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