Birmingham chief Pannu eager to lift scouting division

Birmingham City

Birmingham City vice-chairman Peter Pannu says improvements in the academy and scouting division are on the agenda.

New staff on the medical and sports science side have been added, and 1 million worth of work is being carried out at Wast Hills, mainly on the training pitches, in time for when Blues report back in the first week of July.

Once our business is done, I will be putting a lot of emphasis on restructuring the Academy and our scouting department, confirmed Pannu to the _Birmingham Mail_.

As a club we want to continue to improve and these areas are to be looked at.

We want to have the ability to develop the best young talents and scan the world for footballers because football cannot be dependent on buying players for 10 million and 20 million all the time.

Rules are coming into force from UEFA which will make these parts of a football club very important. Home-grown players, in particular, are going to be vital.