The founder of the Right to Dream Academy, Tom Vernon, has revealed that he borrowed ten million pounds (£10m) from a friend to buy Nordsjaelland in 2015.

The Danish top flight club has become a pathway for many Ghanaian talents, including Mohammed Kudus, Kamaldeen Sulemana and Ernest Nuamah, to break into major European clubs from the Akosombo-based academy.

The deal offered academy graduates the chance to gain experience playing in a European league before transitioning to other clubs.

Speaking to Joy Sports in a special all-access interview at the Right to Dream school, the Englishman disclosed that it was a huge risk buying Nordsjaelland.

“I borrowed 10 million pounds from a friend in London [to buy FC Nordsjaelland]. And it was a huge risk.

“We just decided to do that, otherwise we're just gonna stay in the status quo. We think our kids have so much potential. We were so frustrated seeing some of the challenges that we couldn't overcome.

“One day, I was in a board meeting and then one of the board members, Kofi Anku, said, Tom, what's the solution? I said, the only solution is to buy our own club in Europe.

“He was like, okay, go and do it. I knew a guy who'd always said, look, if you ever wanna make a like real player or anything, just call me. His name is Bob Finch.

“I said, look, I've got this idea. Me and a guy, Joe Mulberry, we've done a lot of analysis of all the markets. We think Denmark is unique for a number of reasons and no one's really like thought about it before. And so we wanna like take this big step.

“We went and made a pitch to him and we thought like it would take some months.

“We went and sat in the pub in Wimbledon after the pitch. He called 30 minutes later and said I’ll give you all the money.”

You can watch Fentuo Tahiru Fentuo’s special interview with the Right to Dream founder on Saturday, June 15 at 7:30 pm on the Joy News channel.