The FA has taken a crucial step into improving England after being handed the National Football Centre keys, according to David Sheepshanks.
England finally get their hands on their centre of excellence
The Football Association has taken a crucial step into improving future England teams after being handed the National Football Centre keys, according to David Sheepshanks.
Treble-winning Spain and France have been rewarded for their investment in youth football with major international honours in recent years.
The NFC chairman believes the 330-acre St George's Park complex will do something similar by narrowing the gap between the amount of top coaches plying their trade in this country and on the continent.
Long-term success
He said: "We have to believe that in St George's Park we are investing in the future and the long-term success of the England side.
"We are top eight in the FIFA rankings today and we have to believe we can become top four, top two and even one day the best. That is one of the things St George's Park is all about.
"Basically what it is about is that better coaches make better players. The teacher has a defining influence. We know that from schools.
"Good teachers excite them and, when it's teachers they don't enjoy, they tend to turn off. It is exactly the same in sport and football.
"As things stand Spain have 25,000 UEFA A, B and pro-licence coaches, Italy 30,000 and Germany 35,000 while England have less than 6,000.
"Effectively England is five and six to one down ratio-wise on any other major soccer nation in terms of qualified coaches at that level.
"We hope in the next five years to increase that number very substantially and a significant part of that will be via St George's Park."
Dividends
While Sheepshanks welcomed the official handover from the developers he warned the NFC project was a long-term one and could take a decade before their results are felt.
"I stress it's about the long term," he added. "Football doesn't do long term very well but the people who planned Spain's future many years ago, have reaped their dividends in the last six years.
"It was the same in France. When Clairefontaine was first thought about in the 1980s, it was 10 years until France won the World Cup. We've got to be a little bit patient."
