Burnley Joint Operating Directors Barry Kilby and Brendan Flood today gave the green light to a £2million investment in Burnley's training facilities at Gawthorpe.
The massive redevelopment at the Gawthorpe training base in Padiham will provide improved training and development facilities for all ages, ranging from the six to eight-year-olds attending the Development Centre, through to age nine and up at the Centre of Excellence and all the way through to the youth side and onto first team level.
Among the facilities will be a state-of-the-art indoor facility that allows training to take place 365 days a year, and new changing and coaching facilities for the first team, youth and Centre of Excellence.
A planning application is now due to be submitted towards the end of July, which will hopefully give all these proposals the go-ahead.
This substantial, seven-figure investment reinforces the Clarets long-lasting commitment to youth development at a time when there had been suggestions the club was scaling back its youth development programme.
Recent comments made by Mr Flood were interpreted as a shift in focus to only developing players aged 16 and over, when the actual intention was to promote a surge in this area to complement the sterling work being done with younger age groups.
The announcement of the proposed tour to the USA is seen as an integral part of this focus, helping to forge further links with clubs Stateside with ultimate aim of uncovering talented players over 16.
The club already has strong continental links, with Burnley coaches spending time at established centres in Toronto and Phoenix over the summer.
In addition, links have been established links with a centre in Poland, while closer to home Burnley has development centres in Belfast, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and Cheshire, and a further centre proposed in North Wales.
Today's announcement can therefore be seen as a further step on the road to re-establishing Burnley as a pre-eminent centre of youth development.
Development Director Paul Fletcher said: "We are very much aware that a successful youth policy will be the life-blood for the club in the years ahead.
"I recently spent a week in America with Chairman Barry Kilby and Brendan Flood and we talked for many hours about the importance of a successful youth policy, which will be helped by the £2million investment in better facilities at Gawthorpe.
"I feel that Brendan's comments were taken out of context as he has stated to me on a number of occasions that we must put in place a 'special strategy' for the 16-and-over age group to ensure that they are not ambushed by the bigger clubs.
"However, we intend to concentrate our efforts and develop different strategies just as strongly on the age groups from six to 16."
Stadium manager Doug Metcalfe added: "This is another exciting piece of the jigsaw regarding the development of Burnley FC.
"Over the past five or six years we have seen a resurgence in our youth development policy and this development will further enhance that.
"It is vital that for the development of our existing players and in the attempt to attract additional quality players that we are able to provide top class facilities that will compete with the best out there.
"It will also enable us to apply for funding status for Academy status, which is what everyone is striving towards."
