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Heriot-Watt University and Heart of Midlothian football club are to create a Pounds 5 million football academy.

The Hearts board said this week that the academy would allow rising stars "to combine the possibility of flexible learning with their football development". The club also plans to sponsor football scholarships to add to Heriot-Watt's existing programme of sports scholarships.

Communal facilities, to be completed in 2001, will include grass pitches upgraded to Scottish Premier League standard, a "new generation" floodlit synthetic grass pitch, an indoor training hall and a seminar room. They will match facilities at Liverpool, Middlesbrough and Blackburn football clubs, considered to be state-of-the-art football academies in English football.