St. George’s Park will play host to nine promising international football coaches next month as part of The FA’s new international bursary scheme.

The FA International Licence course will be held at the new national football centre from 3-16 December, as The FA seeks to build on its previous international relations work with federations from around the world.

The FA bursary scheme is intended to showcase the facilities at St. George’s Park around the globe, whilst offering developing coaches the opportunity to enhance their learning in a world-class sporting environment.

The bursary scheme complements The FA’s newly signed Memorandum of Understanding with FIFA, whereby skills and knowledge will be shared with FIFA member associations.

Jane Bateman, Head of International Relations at The FA, said: “The FA has a long history of developing football around the world.

"Like the new Memorandum of Understanding with FIFA, this bursary project opens our education programmes to the international football community and, in this case, will give a group of international coaches the experience of St. George’s Park in its inaugural year.

“These coaches come from diverse backgrounds and all have great potential as coaches in their countries.

"We are proud to be supporting them and to be playing a key part in their development.”

The FA funds the candidates’ course fees, flights, transfers and accommodation for the period, on the basis of them fulfilling the following criteria:

- The coaches must be a senior coach, working with senior players, or;
- be ex-professional or high-level semi-professional player with proven coaching experience, or;
- the coach is a teacher with good evidence of playing experience.

Candidates must also be comfortable dealing with teams and large groups of senior players and should therefore be at The FA Intermediate Level (2) or equivalent. Candidates must have a very good standard of spoken and written English.

The bursary scheme news comes on the day that FIFA President Joseph S Blatter made his first visit to the Burton upon Trent venue, where he received a tour of the state-of-the-art sports science and medical facilities.

For all the latest news and information from St. George's Park, visit the official website.