English Premier League side Blackburn Rovers plan to establish a youth academy in India, its owners have said ahead of the club’s pre-season tour of the sub-continent.

The managing director of Indian poultry giant Venky’s, which bought the Ewood Park side in November last year, told The Indian Express newspaper the club was planning a centre of excellence near Pune which is 100 kilometres from Mumbai.

“We are getting an academy and a stadium in Pune,” Venky’s B. Balaji Rao was quoted as saying.

“The site is near the Mumbai-Pune highway and will be ready in a year-and-a-half or two years.”

Rao said the academy will be run exactly like a Blackburn Rovers’ training centre at Brockhall in northwest England, taking players from the age of 11 and 12.

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