BLACKBURN Rovers are hoping to cash in on the success of Hakan Sukur and Tugay by attracting some of the brightest young talent in Turkey to Britain.

Graeme Souness and his coaching staff are currently working on expanding their scouting network across the globe, as we reported in this column only last week.

And one of the places Souness is most eager to explore is Turkey after Sukur and Tugay have proved they can be a success in England.

Both players are huge heroes back home, where they attract as much media attention as Michael Owen and David Beckham do here.

So the fact that both are currently on the books at Ewood has helped to boost Rovers' profile across Turkey.

And Souness hopes to use that as a way of tapping into the rich seam of young talent he believes exists there.

"We should be taking advantage of the fact that we've got Hakan and Tugay here and maybe get a couple of young Turkish players over," said Souness, the former manager of Galatasaray, Turkey's biggest club side.

"We've got to try and spread our net as far as we can because in the North West we are competing with a lot of the big teams for the best young players in the area.

"I'm not talking about setting up some kind of Academy over there, we'd look to work through our contacts in trying to target any promising young lads who we think might have a chance of doing it over here.

"Turkey did finish third in the World Cup and I know from experience that they've got some very good players there."

It's ironic that while the relationship between England and Turkey has never been more strained in a football sense following the explosive Euro 2004 qualifier between the two nations recently, Souness is trying to strengthen links between the countries.

It's all part of his grand plan to have scouts operating for Rovers in all corners of the world.

As we revealed last week, Stig Bjornebye has been lined up to act as Rovers' man in Scandinavia when he returns to Norway this summer.

And former Ewood favourite Stuart Munro is already keeping tabs on things in Australia after first establishing links with Souness during his days as a player at Rangers.

"Stuart Munro now works for us in Australia and Stig is going to be our man in Scandinavia when he goes back there," revealed Souness.

"These are people who I've obviously worked with before so I know they are good men and I know they'll work their socks off for us."

A number of young players from abroad have already been recruited by Rovers at Academy level.