Inter Milan to set up long-term Australian program

Italian Series A football club Inter Milan has announced its intent to have a long-term presence in Australia with plans to bring some top youth coaches to teach Australia's future stars. The club also wants to set up a university-level course to help Australia's leading coaches as well as an exchange program that will give our best players and coaches the chance to work overseas. Inter's representative in Australia, Vince Colagiuri, said the way forward was to forge links with Europe's finest coaches.

"We [Australia] have the raw material, we just don't have the good coaching and the good environment," he told John Stomo of the Sydney Morning Herald. "The guys who are coming out are super-experienced youth development coaches and they want to contribute to improving our system. The only way we, as coaches, are going to get better is to be exposed to better coaches." The coaches will arrive late next month and their agenda will include a player scouting expedition, as well as seminars to lay the groundwork for these programs.