Stephen Robinson has revealed his long-term vision for the St Mirren academy to recruit from all over the world.

The Paisley manager has helped rebuild the youth set-up at Ralston in recent years after Covid led to the academy being majorly stripped back.

Now, with promising young talent developing and pushing for first-team spots, Robinson is keen to ramp up the momentum and build a global youth recruitment strategy.

"There's a long-term vision for what we want to do with the academy," explained the St Mirren manager. "We want to recruit from different areas. We want to get digs where we can bring boys over from foreign countries; from Northern Ireland, from Africa, from Europe.

"That's so there's a wider network instead of a 25-mile radius that you're competing against Rangers, Celtic Hibs, Hearts, all the bigger clubs that have a lot more sway than us.

"We have to get recruitment right at youth level. Which I don't believe it was before -that came down to money as well as infrastructure."

The hope is for connections to be developed with new and existing host families to allow the club to attract foreign players to move to Scotland and progress through the academy.

And informal relationships with elite national academies - including the JD Academy in Northern Ireland - could also result in better access to new markets.

"We haven't got the money to buy them," Robinson said when asked whether the club would consider purchasing flats in a bricks and mortar approach. 

"We are looking at ways, every way possible, to produce footballers. Everybody uses data and everybody's using different ways.

"We have to widen our recruitment of young players. We aren't getting the best Scottish kids.

"We might get one or two of them, but we're not getting the best because the bigger clubs take them or come and take them at 14. "So you have to always explore different ways. And you need accommodation, you need to put boys up, you have to have host families - which I had when I moved over from Northern Ireland.

"We want to get relationships with the JD Academy in Northern Ireland - which we can do - but we have to have places to put these players. It's not something that happens overnight but it's something that needs to happen at the club.

"We have to recruit players, we have to develop our own players and we have to have a larger amount of the squad made by young players.

"People want young players in the squads, but they have to be good enough and they have to be ready. We haven't had that previously. We're getting there."

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Currently, St Mirren have a handful of academy graduates in and around the first team with Fraser Taylor and Luke Kenny regularly in matchday squads while Lewis Jamieson is out on loan at Raith Rovers.

Kieran Offord - who has four goals in four league outings for Crusaders - is another highly-rated prospect with the 20-year-old pushing to break into the St Mirren squad and for a new contract.

"We're getting there with young Fraser [Taylor]. We're getting there with Luke Kenny and Lewis Jamieson out on loan. But that's taking time and they're probably all for next season where they'll make an impact in the squad. That's what we're trying to do.

"Kieran was back here with us last week. We bring the boys back in the international break to play. He looked really sharp, really confident.

"We've used the Irish market well to facilitate people's development. We don't have a development squad here. We have some younger boys, and it's taken a little while to get them fit enough, strong enough and tactically aware enough.

"That's been re-staffing the academy, building it back up again. But they have to play games. We have to have our young players playing games. I believe they're a couple of years behind in that.

"Kieran's proved when you go out, he's scored four goals in four games. He's the talk of the Irish league at the moment. It's brilliant, like Fraz was last year.

"We're looking at these boys for next season and going, okay, can we make them maybe being from 20th to 16th man to being starters or making up 11, 12, 13, 14 in the squad? That's ultimately the goal."