NEWCASTLE United have tried to do it, and now Roy Keane has admitted Sunderland may also have to emulate the Arsenal model of scouring the world for the best teenage talent.

Under current Football Association rules, Premier League academies are only permitted to recruit British children under the age of 11 who live within a one-hour radius of the club, and children over the age of 11 who live within a 90-minute span.

Once a youngster has joined an academy, he is not permitted to leave for an alternative one unless he can prove his parents are moving for work reasons, and even then the club he is joining is likely to be saddled with a hefty compensation fee.

A player born in Devon or Dulwich is effectively barred from joining Sunderland’s academy, and instead of pumping money into the development of local players in the bracket between 11-16 years, a number of clubs are devoting their attention to the recruitment of overseas youngsters instead.

Those youngsters can effectively come from anywhere, and the likes of Arsenal and Liverpool have packed their academies with foreignborn talent.

Newcastle have spent the last 12 months attempting to follow a similar model, with the likes of Fabio Zamb l e r a , T a m a s Kadar and Frank Danquah arriving on Tyneside at an early stage of their footballing development.

Sunderland have adopted a much more parochial outlook in the past, but as he attempts to improve the output from his club’s Academy of Light, Keane has admitted that he is keen to broaden the Black Cats’ reach.

The Irishman has already improved the club’s scouting network, and the next phase of his reorganisation should see the arrival of a select band of academy recruits.

“The Arsenal-Sheffield United Carling Cup game made me very envious,” said Keane. “The word on the street is that Arsenal have a group of kids coming through that will be absolutely outstanding, but a lot of those kids have been bought from other clubs. A lot of those kids haven’t come through the academy at Arsenal.

“They have been bought, and it’s the same with Chelsea and one or two other clubs like that.

They buy a lot of their young players and that’s something we are looking at.

“We have tough battles up here in terms of signing young players.

If you look at our academy, we are restricted in terms of our location.

You can only bring in kids from a certain area. It’s a certain radius and a lot of our radius is in the North Sea. I don’t suppose there’s a lot of good fish out there.

“Some people might be reluctant to spend £200-400,000 on an academy player, but that’s what the likes of Man United, Chelsea and Man City have done.”

Keane’s comments are not a reflection of the current work being done at Sunderland’s academy, as the Black Cats boss is delighted with the crop of youngsters currently knocking on the door of his first-team squad.

The likes of Martyn Waghorn, Jordan Henderson and David Dowson have all been involved with Sunderland’s senior squad in the last two seasons, and scouts have been flocking to the club’s youth team and reserves games in the hope of unearthing a gem.

“Every youth team will have one or two good players, and if your systems are right, you’ll be looking at them,”

said Keane. “But you also have to watch who’s coming to your own youth-team games.

We’ve had people coming to watch our games who shouldn’t have been there, scouts from other clubs.

“We’ve produced some good players recently and our youth team was very good last year. A lot of the players are making their mark in terms of our reserves and people are definitely having a sniff around.”

■ Sunderland’s reserves made hard work of a 2-1 win over Hull’s second string last night – a fourth victory in five games this season.

Striker David Dowson gave the home side the lead in the 34th minute, scoring from close range after good work by Nathan Luscombe.

But the Black Cats had to wait until the 81st minute to double their lead – Graham Kavanagh converting from close range after Dowson’s shot had been saved by Hull keeper Mark Oxley.

The Tigers pulled a goal back from the penalty spot in the 86th minute after Peter Hartey fouled Darragh Satelle. Nathan Doyle sending Nick Colgan the wrong way.

SUNDERLAND: Colgan, Kay, Hartley, McArdle, Liddle, Henderson, Kavanagh, Meyler (Chandler 87), Colback, Luscombe (Cook 73), Dowson (Prica 87).