Members of the Bermuda Football Association's top brass today fly out to England for top level discussions with members of the English FA.

BFA president Larry Mussenden will be joined by second vice-president Robert Calderon and general secretary David Sabir on the venture, which will mark the first time in several years that the local governing body has been able to secure audience with the body that presides over the 'home of football'.

One of the aims of the visit will be to gain a deeper understanding of the administrative blueprint already established in England, and find ways of replicating that here.

"Let's face it, running sports or any organisation is a heavy responsibility," said Sabir, particularly thankful to Phillip Troake, general manager of British Airways, who was instrumental in the travel plans. "In the corporate world motivation, and certainly resources are key. In this regard every bit of new information or cooperation amongst colleagues in different parts of the world can only assist in what we are trying to accomplish.

"One of the other things is that England is very much respected throughout the world in regards to its developmental programmes, and, as such, we have an affinity to the UK.

"It only meshes well with what has taken place in the past, where a number of our coaches, our referees and other administrators have gone over to England.

"Certainly reestablishing those contacts, or reestablishing that sort of relationship again can only assist going forward."

On Monday the BFA delegation will hold an intensive series of talks with various departmental heads, starting with Mark Sudbury, head of research, campaigns and customer relations, and following with areas such as competitions and regulations, technical coordination, refereeing, marketing, national football development, marketing communications.

Mussenden was anxiously awaiting these meetings, as several of the committees are similar to those he has established since his was elected last month.

"On Monday we have a whole series of meetings, and some of the people that we will be meeting with fall in line with the committees that we have established here," he said. "For instance, we have a committee for marketing and special events, and we have a meeting with their marketing people.

"Also we have already established a coaching committee, which we look to rename the technical committee, and we're meeting with their technical coordinator. We're taking the second vice president, Robert Calderon, who is also the chair of our coaching committee, so we're going to be looking for as many tips as we can from the FA."

Added Sabir: "Also, what you'll see in the research, campaigns and customer relations meeting we're looking to find out how we can better foster communication, relationships with our people similar to the lines they may do on a larger scale in England.

"We've established our club relations committee, which is headed by Aldwyn Savery, so this information hopefully will prove very significant with the task that he and his committee have."

On Saturday the local delegation will travel to Old Trafford to watch England's crucial World Cup qualifying match against Greece.