Wolverhampton Wanderers sent two officials to Turkey to visit Altinordu over the past few days ahead of the U12 Izmir Cup tournament.
Wolves U19-U12 Academy chief and coach Jonathan Hunter and Academy coach Ryan Howard were given a tour of the Altinordu grounds by club officials Aydın Güvenir and Şefi Alkım Karantay.
The Wolves officials inspected the academy, the Ismet Orgunbilge grounds where the U12 Izmir Cup will be held and the Metin Oktay academy in Torbali which is home to the Altinordu academy.
Wolves will be participating in the U12 tournament for the first time and will be one of six Premier League sides sending teams; Chelsea, Manchester City, Leicester City, Southampton and Cardiff City being the others.
Altinordu have invested heavily in building a state of the art academy.
Club president Seyit Mehmet Ozkan revealed that he has drawn inspiration from the cantera system employed by Spanish sides – Athletic Bilbao in particular – as being the inspiration behind his grand master plan. “Athletic Bilbao were my inspiration,” he said in my article for the Guardian. “In fact we built close ties with the club four years ago and are completely behind this system.”
The club have already had a few early success stories with Caglar Soyuncu moving to Leicester City for £20m and Cengiz Under excelling at Roma.
