FA Chairman Greg Clarke backs £1.6m football training centre in Shropshire

Greg Clarke visited Telford College's Haybridge campus where the Shropshire Football Association wants to build a new centre of excellence.

It is hoped the facility will be a mini version of the FA’s celebrated training base at St George's Park in Staffordshire.

Members of the Shropshire FA are now hoping to raise the funds needed for the project by working with local and national businesses as well the Football Foundation and the FA.

And Clarke was impressed by the plans when he was given a tour of college site.

"Towns like Telford, with 200,000 people, have got to have facilities like the ones that are proposed," he said.

"It’s not just about the future of football. It’s about inclusion, it’s about physical health, mental health.

"If we are going to fight obesity, heart disease, diabetes, depression getting people involved in sport and making new friends is the way forward.

"This is about everybody, it doesn’t matter what ethnicity you are, if you have a disability, what gender you are. It’s about getting people healthy, enjoying themselves and enjoying playing sport."

The National Game board is the body of the FA which defines how the organisation spends its money.

The FA has already expressed it's desire to build centre of excellences in each county in a bid to improve grass roots football.

And Mr Clarke said he will do everything he can to help the project at Telford College get off the ground.

"The National Board runs the amateur game and the grass roots game in England," he added.

"There job is fund the projects. My job is to get them as much money as possible, that is what I work on.

"My job is to support projects like this, drum up more sponsorship money and find innovative ways we can improve grassroots facilities in this country.

"This is one of those innovative projects. It ticks a lot of boxes. It is right in the centre of a community that is short of football facilities."