Accompanying them was Gerard Houllier, the former Technical Director of the French Football Federation and the man largely credited with putting in place the building blocks for recent French success.

The Clairefontaine facility, located 30 miles outside Paris, began operations in 1990 and has produced the likes of Thierry Henry, William Gallas and Nicolas Anelka.

Palios and Brooking will be assessing how the lessons learned in France can be successfully applied to English football.

The fact-finding visit forms part of an on-going review into the standards and development of coaching in England, as well as the National Football Centre project at Burton-on-Trent.

The FA has also been consulting various experts at academies and other youth development structures, and does not expect to make a final decision on the project’s future until early next year.

Mark Palios told TheFA.com: "This is another step in ensuring that we have expert input from people of the calibre of Gerard Houllier who has a proven track record in this area.

"It is valuable to see how they have structured their coaching in France. There is unity of purpose which ensures that the join between the amateur and pro game is seamless in the development and coaching of young players.

"This has not always been replicated in England, and it is certainly something from which we can learn."

Also speaking to this website, Sir Trevor Brooking said: "France has produced a steady stream of outstanding young players in recent years and no-one knows more about that process than Gerard Houllier.

"It has been an extremely useful exercise in understanding the reasons behind French success and looking at how we can achieve something similar in our own youth development system.

"However, we have to be careful to avoid a ‘one size fits all’ approach and look carefully at the best system for English football.

"In England we have a highly developed framework of academies and centres of excellence which needs to be integrated into any national development plans."