A former nightclub owner and Bradford City coach have teamed up to spearhead a bid to take over the club's centre of excellence for youth footballers.

Businessman Zie Dean and Peter Horne, who currently coaches City players aged nine to 16, were today holding meetings at the club regarding their plans.

The pair have tabled a bid to run the youth system, which they claim faces ruin amid the club's current financial plight.

And they have also revealed ambitious plans to create a Bradford City Football Academy of Culture which would focus particularly on the development of budding talent from the Asian community.

They have been drawing up plans for the academy for more than a year and have secured funding from a number of Bradford-based businesses, plus support from major sporting names including Peter Reid and Bulls' coach Brian Noble.

But the current crisis has forced them to rethink the proposals and look at completely taking over the youth set-up at City.

Today Mr Dean, whose son attends the Centre of Excellence, said the crisis hit home to him last week when some of the footballers were sent home from training because the club could not guarantee they would be able to play next season.

He said there were around 160 young footballers on the books, including some highly-rated boys who were being targeted by other clubs, including many from the Premiership.

The Centre of Excellence is currently weeks behind in its preparation for the new season, with training facilities and fixtures still to be arranged.

Former Maestro nightclub boss Mr Dean said that unless the matter was resolved quickly the club faced being set back five years in its youth development. "The administrators are very busy trying to save the club, but there is a danger that they will completely forget the youth," he said.

Mr Dean and Mr Horne were heavily involved in organising for some of the City youth teams to play in a tournament in Holland in recent years and helped secure sponsorship from Coral Windows for the Centre of Excellence.

Mr Horne said the City youth system had made huge progress in recent years and it was vital to retain the services of coaches John Pepper and Chris Dowham.

"If this comes off it will be such a big thing. The children of Bradford, be they black, Asian, white or whatever, need to be brought together and this is an ideal opportunity to do it. Unfortunately, people are just focusing on the first team and not what is behind it."

Mr Dean, who was today meeting with the Bradford City steering committee, added: "We are prepared to put everything that we have worked for into the Centre of Excellence but we need to act quickly, or we risk losing everything.

"It has been my dream all my life to be involved in some thing like this."