City are discussing plans to set up their own academy in Mexico.

Joint-chairman Mark Lawn and head of operations Dave Baldwin will be jetting out to Central America later this month for a five-day fact-finding mission.

They will be visiting a private school in Mexico City which is looking to expand into a coaching centre – and want City to come on board.

Lawn said: “Through Mark Ellis we got introduced to Gary Batley, who used to work for Leeds United’s youth and now goes out there regularly to coach the coaches at this school.

“They then approached us to go over and talk about the possibility of setting up an academy and coaching centre. At the moment the only ones in Mexico City are connected to Juventus and Real Madrid.

“The school, which has a fairly high-quality clientele, have just bought some land to put two or three pitches on and they are paying for me and David to go and have a look. If all goes well, we could be looking at a fairly quick move to set things up.

“There’s also a club who want to talk to us as well about a possible link. Obviously we don’t know what will happen but it’s certainly worth looking at and would be a great way of promoting the name and brand of the football club.”

Any move to develop in Central America in the future could cast a doubt over City’s current link-up with Royal Racing FC Montegnee in Belgium.

City had hoped to use the Liege club as a production line for bringing through young talent from around the world but so far they have been disappointed with the lack of results.

Lawn admitted: “Things aren’t going as well as we would have expected them to be. The quality of the lads that have come over is not what we had hoped.”