Published 2/10/2007 8:18:18 PM by AFP from Geneva

GENEVA (AFP) - A Swiss second division football club, Lausanne-Sport, will become the European gateway for a new training scheme for young Brazilian players involving Pele, the footballing legend said.

Campus Pele will combine football training and education for teenage talent from deprived backgrounds at its base in Sao Paolo state in Brazil, with the backing of investment from Brazilian financiers, the organisers said.

Pele said he owed everything to football, including his education, his livelihood and his international exposure.

"I want to give something back to football," he told journalists here. "Until now I had lots of offers to a be a professional coach around the world. My retirement will be to work with youngsters," Pele added.

The Brazilian star will guide new investments and the training programme for the youngsters, who will spend time with Brazil´s second division Paulista football club and get a chance to show their worth to European club scouts at Lausanne.

"Maybe it will be a surprise for the youngsters to have Pele as something like their manager," Pele said.

Investors in the Luxembourg-based company set up to finance the project are effectively being promised a stake in nurturing Brazilian stars of tomorrow.

"The core part of the project is to prepare young players to be professional footballers, to travel around the world, in the way that you train any other professional in the world, like lawyers or bankers," said one of the backers, Celso Santos Grellet.

Lausanne-Sport said the ten-year partnership was a huge boost for the club and its emerging sports-education programme.

"In sporting terms it brings us tremendous added value, because even if the fruits of the work will only emerge in three or four years time, I don´t have to point out that Brazilian players are still the best in the world," senior club executive Francois Laydu said.

Lausanne-Sport are currently 10th in the Swiss second division.

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