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Quality Mark Grassroots club coaches and football development staff from the Scottish FA North and East Regions will travel to the Valencia region of Spain from 18th-24th April as part of a European funded educational fact-finding visit.

Supported by the Leonardo do Vinci programme, the trip will see a 22 strong group from across both the North and East Region spend time with their Spanish counterparts to share ideas and glean knowledge and experiences to help shape and improve the game back home in Scotland.

Valencia is the third largest city and metropolitan area in Spain with around 2.3 million inhabitants regionally and plays host to football clubs both in an urban setting alongside those in a more rural environment.

The Leonardo da Vinci trip will focus on professional, semi-professional and grassroots club development and how they deal with the nurturing and development of young and youth players to give them the best possible chance of playing to the best of their ability.

Tom Docherty, Leonardo programme manager for the Scottish FA, said: “This trip is a fantastic opportunity for those in attendance to study at close hand how Spanish Football operates and use this to develop their clubs, leagues and players back in Scotland.”

The Leonardo Programme is part of the European Union’s Lifelong Learning Programme.

It supports UK vocational education and training organisations, staff and learners to work together with European partners to improve training, skills and employability.

Through the Association’s network of regional managers, study visits to a host of European destinations have been arranged for Quality Mark accredited grassroots clubs with the aim of sharing new developments in helping the game grow.