Former England boss Glenn Hoddle has revealed he turned down the chance of a second spell in charge at Southampton and may now never return to football management.

Hoddle claims the approach from the Saints was one of "six or seven" offers of employment but insists he is now focussed on his 'second chance' scheme for young players who have been dumped by their clubs.

The ex-Tottenham and Monaco midfielder has opened a soccer academy in Spain.

He has also launched an ambitious project in England aimed at resurrecting the fledgling careers of teenage discards from Premier League and Football League clubs.

Eighteen months after the scheme's inception, Hoddle has 60 hand-picked youngsters who have completed trials at Chelsea's state-of-the-art training centre in Surrey and won a year's scholarship at his academy in the southern Spanish resort of Monticastillo.

Hoddle, 50, said: "I'm confident that over the next five years we are going to discover some real diamonds.

"I think a good percentage of the lads we are trialling will get back into the game at a good level and some of them will become top, top players."

He added: "I was offered the manager's job at Southampton again a little while ago and I've probably turned down six or seven jobs, some of which were internationals and ones I really had to think about.

"But I had already got into this project and it is what I want to do now. I feel it is going to be a really refreshing way of working.

"I think giving people a second chance, talented young men, is a really worthwhile thing and now that I've started this journey I want to see if we can finish it.

"When I was a manager my worst job was telling young players they were being released by the club because there were only so many you could keep on. I remember the heartache and I still wonder now just how many potentially good ones I had to let go."