MUNICH: Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has accused English clubs of effectively “kidnapping” young players from overseas.

Bayern are set to open a new youth academy in the north of Munich next summer, and Rummenigge has declared he would have “moral reservations” about filling it with youngsters from outside Germany.

“We don’t want to bring some 10 or 11-year-old to Munich like the English do,” he said in comments published in the club’s magazine. “You could almost speak of kidnapping with them and I would have moral reservations about that.”

Rummenigge says the club’s focus will not be on overseas targets but on those closer to home in Munich, Bavaria and beyond in Germany.

Bayern have a history of nurturing homegrown talent, with the likes of Philipp Lahm, Thomas Müller and Bastian Schweinsteiger coming through the ranks in recent years. Rummenigge, though, hopes the new academy will revive the club’s production line which he admitted had “lost a bit of ground, nationally and internationally” in that area.