The Spanish professional Real Madrid football club is planning to open an academy for local young in Hanoi.

The topic was raised during a meeting between the club’s international training manager, Manuel Pareno Rogriguez, and the Vietnam Professional Football JSC (VPF) leaders on February 19.

A summer course for teenagers is expected to be launched in the capital this year to introduce Real Madrid’s training programme before the club decides the location and operation of the future academy.

VPF has worked hard in recent times to promote cooperation between Vietnam and the rest of the world. Currently its football academy is cooperating with Ajax Amsterdam of the Netherlands to train young talents.

Earlier in 2007, the English Premier League’s Arsenal FC helped Hoang Anh Gia Lai FC build a football academy with an investment of 4 million USD in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai.

Over five years of operation, the academy has sent batches of young footballers to the UK for international standard training.

Many of the current under-19 national football team’s members were trained in the Hoang Anh Gia Lai-Arsenal JMG Football Academy.-VNA