Matthew Hornshaw recently undertook a visit to Sofia to discuss a potential working partnership with Mrs Bistra Ilieva, Managing Director of the Darbi Group of companies. Bistra heads up a portfolio of business entities covering such areas as education management, student recruitment, academic programmes of study, tourism and hospitality and sport management. Mrs Ilieva has extensive contacts in all areas but an area of expected growth is that of youth football development in partnership with local clubs and senior level officials.

Following a number of meetings with Bistra and her business associates, it was agreed that MGH would work with Darbi in a range of areas, these include:

- acting as UK contact for links with overseas study destinations

- sourcing UK sports clubs to engage in activities in Bulgaria including sports tours (football, golf, volleyball etc.), sports camps and training venues

- the UK contact for links with professional football clubs to engage in player trials and tournaments in Bulgaria and identification and placement of players into the UK

Part of the MGH remit with Darbi is to assist another of our partners, Brooke House College, with their link to Darbi, and Matthew also represented Brooke House whilst in Sofia.