Academy director Bryan Klug has confirmed that the Blues will be looking to upgrade to a Category One youth set-up from the current Category Two.
"The owner is keen on applying for Category One and we will be doing that as soon as we can,” Klug said. "But there is a lot of expense involved and we have to find ways of funding that.”
Speaking in February, shortly after Category Two status was confirmed by an independent audit, academy operations manager Helen Broughton told TWTD that such an upgrade is not a huge leap: "What we’ve put in place to get to Category Two is massive in terms of facilities and staffing and the next step up isn’t that massive.
"Hopefully, it’s a matter of another couple of members of staff and another classroom, so it’s quite small really.
"The stipulation is that you put in £1.5 million at Category One and you get £750,000 as a grant on top, but this club spends a lot on its youth development anyway, so while there’s a little bit more investment required, it’s not massive.”
Clubs can apply to be re-categorised every other season, so the earliest the Blues could make the step up is 2014/15.
Meanwhile, Town’s U15s beat Swansea 3-0 at the Category Two national finals at the National Football Centre at St George’s Park today, having previously won the south-east regional tournament.
The youngsters, who have ex-Blue James Scowcroft amongst the staff who have travelled with them, lost their first two games 2-0 to Birmingham and 1-0 to Crewe yesterday and finished fifth at the two-day competition.