Ronald Koeman Quotes

Both the velodrome and the Commonwealth swimming pool are open to the public and are frequently used by local schools and the local community. Over the last six years young people have been inspired to take up swimming and cycling more seriously; some of them are now coming through as Olympic champions or hopefuls.

As you can probably tell, the push to develop talent in Africa is personal. I grew up there. I played there. I know how much talent there is. We have to concentrate on building facilities, establishing successful leagues and finding investors to help young players.

I would say the youth systems in Germany have impressed me the most and how they grow their youth players into full professionals.

I'm more of a hands-on person. I like working with young people from the standpoint of providing support for the grassroots programs. State, national and Olympic champions begin at a grassroots level.

Taking part in these types of programs is crucial to our youth and crucial to the future of this game.

I think country needs to have a sporting culture. I think if sports were taken as curriculum in school and are encouraged in right way like government of Maharashtra and Haryana have done given Marks for Sports and encouraging them with good jobs.

The quality of our academy system is very high, as good as anything in the world. Around the country, lots of people in youth development are keen to get together and find a solution to that 17-to-21 age bracket and how we get those players playing.

In Holland you go into amateur teams, come up through the ranks and are generally spotted for senior or professional football. At 16, I had made it into a men's amateur team, and was picked up professionally from there.

It's not always about gold medals, I think. It has to be about development, and we are missing that in U.K. at the moment.

Regions' role in detecting and developing a raw talent is no secret, as they work so hard to produce top class players who go on to represent departments, then national team, and also play in different leagues of the world.

If you want to improve the football, of course you need to put attention on the academy, on the school, the facility.

We're in a good position with the Red Bull juniors. When I look around at what other schemes there are, Red Bull has invested a huge amount in youth and should be commended for giving these guys the opportunity that might otherwise have gone missing.

We've got to have a radical rethink of the way the sport is funded to help the young players develop.

I want to help grow the game in India and encourage young kids to play football.

What we have seen is that sports is definitely developing in India. I can see a lot of positive things happening in India. It may take a bit more time, but with proper guidance and people having passion for sports, I don't think we are far away from becoming a good sporting nation.

You've seen players at Everton who have been built up but haven't made the grade.

A lot of kids don't get the chance to play sport.

Politicians should talk about sportspersons and sports, and it should surely be in the agenda when they go out asking for votes.

To work with the kids and help them come through from the Academy to the first team would be brilliant.

I want players to think: 'OK, this has happened now, what is next for me?' That's a very big target because what are academies about nowadays? Is it really just to find one or two players? But what happened to the others? I'm very, very interested in that.

Of course that's Ajax development, giving young players a chance.

I want to help all those youngsters in Nagpur who have fire and sporting spirit burning inside them and not merely those who want to take up wrestling.

Ajax is the best academy in the world.

I want to create as many opportunities as possible for people inclined towards sports.

My captaincy model was characterised by two distinctive pillars. Proper identification of talent and then ensuring the young finds play fearless cricket.