BRISBANE Roar want to produce another A-League player out of the Mid-North Coast.
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And the Queensland-based club is set to push ahead with its plan by announcing a partnership with Port Macquarie-based futsal academies.
The joint venture will see the Roar have a real presence in the area on a weekly basis.
Roar operations manager Jason Buchanan said the club was set to have an academy program based in Port Macquarie with a view to giving local talent as many opportunities as possible.
"When we came down earlier on in the year as part of Soccer Genius I noticed there was some real talent down here especially within the Alexandria Academy and East Coast Eagles Academy," Buchanan said.
"Then when I joined the Roar I spoke to our CEO David Pourre and explained to him what we had done initially and he was really keen to tap into that."
Buchanan said the main object of the academy would be to have local coaches as well as coaches from the A-League club putting players through their paces.
It is hoped by the end of the year when the Roar have new academy teams or trials for that, there are kids from Port Macquarie feeding into those trials.
"We want to start from a young age where you do it properly - it's not a short term project, it's a long-term project," Buchanan said.
"So if we're working with six and seven year-olds, we'll hopefully see the fruits of that development in four to five years' time.
"There is only a limited amount of A-League teams which means there's a limited amount of professional opportunities in Australia so we want to come down and help grow the players down here."
Buchanan said he saw what talent was ready to be tapped into on the Mid North Coast through his role with Soccer Genius before he joined the Roar.
"There's an abundance of talent here," he said.
"We want to create opportunities so if there are kids here that are good enough - and the parents are willing to relocate to Brisbane - we'd be happy to take these kids on board.
"Of course it's always good to get Brisbane Roar branding out there, but ultimately we want to see if we can produce another A-League player from Port Macquarie and surrounding areas."
As a result, the Roar could potentially bring matches to Port Macquarie in coming years after they took 2019 pre-season fixtures to locations outside of Brisbane.
"Anything's possible," Buchanan said.
"In our pre-season this year we've been to Gladstone, Wide Bay, there was talk of going to Cairns and our CEO is keen to expand our brand and cast our eye over any talent."