Andrea Radrizzani clarifies Leeds United’s links with Ivan Bravo-led Aspire Academy

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Leeds United have a link with the Qatar-based Aspire Academy.

Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani has told the Yorkshire Evening Post that the club will eventually reap the rewards of their partnership with the Aspire Academy.

Whilst Leeds have a long history of bringing players through their academy, with Premier League players such as Fabian Delph, Charlie Taylor, James Milner, Sam Byram and Aaron Lennon among those to come through the Elland Road ranks.

However, Leeds recently struck a partnership with an academy abroad, strengthening their attempts to secure some of the youngest talents around.

The appointment of Ivan Bravo as a director at Leeds saw the Whites strike a link with the Aspire Academy in Qatar, which Bravo is the Director General of – and the links have been clear thus far.

Aspire own Belgian club KAS Eupen and Spanish side Cultural Leonesa, and with Leeds sending Ouasim Bouy and Yosuke Ideguchi on loan to Cultural Leonesa, the Whites are benefiting in a first-team sense.

However, from an academy perspective, it’s unclear just what Leeds have gained from their ties with Aspire, and the situation has been put to owner Andrea Radrizzani.

Radrizzani has now told the Yorkshire Evening Post that the ties give Leeds the chance to be linked with an academy with incredible facilities and knowledge, as well as medical support.

The Italian noted that Aspire will ‘eventually’ bring an exchange of knowledge with coaches, and the links enable Leeds to have an international scope rather than simply looking for homegrown talents.

“It gives the possibility to the club, which I think is a great opportunity, to be linked to an academy which is probably the best in the world in terms of facilities and knowledge,” said Radrizzani. “We haven’t used it much but we have an opportunity to send our injured players to recover in Aspetar, the medical sports centre of Aspire and one of the best in the world. Also we can use Aspire to send our players to play international youth tournaments, to get more experience and play against big teams.”

“We have our strategy and our objective. They (Aspire) will bring eventually some exchange of know-how with our coaches and we will do the same. We will send ours there to learn and we will send our teams to play tournaments in Aspire. For sure we have a great history but we also need to be open minded about what happens in the world and to educate our players in an international mindset,” he added.