El Tel’s new goal: 12% return from football fund

TERRY Venables, the former professional footballer and England manager, should know a thing or too about the game. Now he has teamed up with three other former players – Hugo Ribeiro, John Mitchell and Michael Black – to launch an offshore investment fund to develop young footballers from Europe, Africa and South America.

His Football Talent Fund is hoping to raise £5million from investors with units of £1,000 each, with a minimum investment of £5,000, which will go towards specialist coaching and education for young players.

The fund predicts investment returns of 12 per cent a year and will repay the capital plus any growth to investors at the end of five years.

As well as coaching, the £5million raised will go towards buying a stake in a second-tier football club in Portugal, which, says the fund’s founders, will act as a feeder club to professional leagues around the world.

The fund also says it will develop partnerships with clubs or academies in Chile and Africa to provide a training path for players. The plan is to have 24 players in development at any one time.

Venables said: ‘All too often, young players aren’t taught properly and it is little wonder the conversion rate of young talent to successful professional football is laughable, especially in the UK.’

In its launch document, the fund hits out at the current football academies, which it said were ‘clearly failing to provide real player development, instead offering a roster of young players without adequate high-level player development coaching.’

Venables, who also managed Barcelona and was nicknamed El Tel, added: ‘The Football Talent Fund has been formed specifically to address this and in time the impact of its work will also be found in the UK.’

The fund will make a return by receiving a percentage of the agency rights of all players which move up through its development programme to play in the Portuguese club. These rights will cover a player’s future earnings, marketing and promotional income and future transfer fees.