Sir Trevor Brooking is confident of the National Football Centre at Burton being resurrected and has been encouraged by the Football Association agreeing their television deal with ESPN.
Brooking, the FA's director of football development, is hoping for the project to be discussed next month, with the recent broadcasting agreement seen as a boost after it was previously suggested the collapse of Setanta had hindered progress.
Brooking was helping unveil Barnet's new training complex, a construction that almost fell through at the early stages before help from the Football Foundation - and the 61-year-old believes Burton can also be completed eventually.
Brooking said: "The design is currently in place. What we have to look at, from a funding point of view, is how we get on after agreeing a deal with ESPN.
"Ian Watmore, our chief executive, is really supportive of player development and the importance of coaching. I'm hoping that is something we'll be focusing on in the first few weeks of the year and see how we move forward on that.
"With Ian coming in I'm quite confident there could be good news."
The Burton project was put on hold in 2004 during the construction of Wembley Stadium, but is still considered important to match the development in other countries with national academies.
"Fabio mentioned the Italian centre," Brooking added. "All the major countries have that.
"Everyone agrees a hub site like Burton would be ideal to take coaching and player development forward."
