CCM CEO Shaun Mielekamp faced the press today after the club confirmed last night they had done a deal with the 100m Jamaican sprint legend to join the club and fight for a starting spot.

Bolt, 31, has never played professionally in his life but has trained with Borussia Dortmund and other clubs previously, and shown a decent touch in celebrity football matches.

He's made no secret of his hopes to one day play professionally but has so far been unable to find a club that will give him a chance.

Now the Mariners have hammered out a deal for Bolt to join them later this month and begin training with the first team to assess his skills before a final decision on a contract is made.

"Our a goal at the Central Coast Mariners is to be the most innovative entertaining and community motivated  sports brand in Australia," said Mielekamp "This is our competitive edge.

"Having Usain Bolt come to the club to try and and hopefully develop into a professional football player is perfectly aligned to the club's philosophy."

But he admitted: "It's important that we don't get too caught up in the hype of possibilities – but the reality is that Usain Bolt has placed his faith in the Central Coast Mariners to accelerate his football journey.

"This must be tempered with the reality that there's a lot of hard work ahead and we're committed to still building a team that will win matches.

"Hopefully Usain can help us on this mission. We welcome Usain with open arms."

Bolt will be living on the Central Coast during his trial period and the club were not putting any time limit on long the trial period could be, after renegotiating the original fixed six week term to now make it indefinite,

And he said the club had been "inundated with sponsor calls" this morning.

"We also look forward to seeing the Central Coast catching the attention of sports lovers all around the world, said Mielekamp.

"Sports lovers who will join us and dare to dream. Sports lovers who truly believe that only those that are brave enough to try and do the impossible are capable of achieving anything.

"The training program will be structured to see if he can reach a level of playing that earns a professional contract.

"This might take three weeks this might take three months this might take six months it might take longer who knows. Only time will tell.

"It's exciting to see what this will do for our region but the important thing for us right now is to look after an athlete who's coming to try to become a professional player."

The club insists Bolt has to get to the level where he's impressed the coach enough to be offered a full-time deal...and only then will they contract negotiations start.

"He has to he has to get to a level where the coach is confident that he'll play regular football and once that that decision is reached then he'll be offered a playing contract." said Mielekamp.

"The first question will be around his his physical abilities and capabilities so our strength and conditioning department will we getting their hands on him first

"How many minutes will he have? What's he physically capable of? Until he's here training with with the experts, we won't really know that...

"We've heard that every time that he's been training, he's made dramatic improvements and that's why it's been structured this way so we will be looking for dramatic improvements.

"Getting him on the ground and getting him with the boots on will be the most telling."

 

He dismissed concerns about the impending Bolt circus becoming a worrying distraction for the rest of the squad as the media descends on Gosford and Tuggerah to follow Bolt's every move.

"We speak about distractions all the time, whether it's distractions in life or that, so for a professional athlete, it is about keeping focus on job ahead," he said.

"The one driving thing that has been through this whole thing has been his own personal passion, his own personal belief and personal desire.

"We've spoken to him about our club and what our beliefs are and we spoke to him about going down the local school and doing school appearances and those sort of things and he bought right into that which has been fantastic.

"It's been his own personal belief, desire and drive that's that's really kept us going."

The club insist because Bolt is still only trial, he will not have a player number when he arrives and they will not be producing any commemorative club shirts for him...yet.

"It's not about having a gimmick," said the club boss. "Time will tell as things grow and if he ends up getting a full playing contract – but we're not going to have a Bolt t-shirt out there tomorrow."