February 13 – Inter Milan has opened its fourth football school in Japan in Fuchu (Tokyo). It will be the first of the training centres to offer an elite youth teams programme.
Opened in conjunction with Japanese football legend Shoji Jo, the centre will be the showpiece of Inter’s Japanese training bases and training methodologies. The Inter Academy Japan project is now in its fifth year with centres in Yoyogi, Sagamihara and Odawara.
Inter vice president Javier Zanetti, Inter Academy project director Barbara Biggi and Inter Academy technical director Marco Monti all attended the opening ceremony in Fuchu.
Althought the Fuchu centre opens this month, the Elite Teams programme will launch in April with Under 9 and Under 15 teams. The centre aims to build towards teams in all age-groups from Under 8s through to under 18s. Each team will follow an identical training regime to that of the Inter youth academy in Milan. The teams will compete in local tournaments.
Inter’s Japanese centres currently have 300 youth players aged between six and 14 and a team of ten local coaches in the Inter Academy Japan programme with the local instructors overseen by Alessandro Zanato, one of the coaches from Inter’s wider youth football programme in Italy.
The Inter Academy programme has centres in Brazil, China and Saudi Arabia and currently works with 15,000 children, 120 local coaches and ten Italian coaches. Its aim is to export the Inter youth academy model and is looking to identify and train the professional footballers of the future. The project also focuses on training local coaches.
By locating outside of Italy it means the young players can train under the watchful eye of Inter coaches without the players needing to leave their home country. Inter is proud of the close ties between Milan and other centres abroad. “It is no exaggeration to say that each and every Inter Academy around the world is a direct extension of the Inter youth academy itself,” said an Inter press release.
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