Gokulam, Minerva Academy look to gain from alliance with Aquila Sports

Both the entities are looking to attain quality younger talents from across the country through this association.

Gokulam Kerala and Minerva Academy have announced a scouting partnership with Aquila Sports Management, that is headed by Goa-based teenager Sanroy D’sousa. The company was launched in June 2020 and aims at promoting footballing talents across the country. D’sousa has several connections in the local football leagues of Goa and aspires to provide those individuals a platform to represent renowned clubs in India.

Aquila’s collaboration with the Malabarians and Minerva - an academy known to have produced some remarkable prodigies in the nation, seems to be a step in a similar direction. It is a coalition that will focus primarily on scouting the most promising players and thus creating a pathway for them to join these two entities.

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Ranjit Bajaj, the owner of Minerva Academy spoke to Khel Now about this move. He explained, “Even though Sanroy D’sousa is very young, I know him from last 2-3 years. He is doing a wonderful job, especially in getting new talents. He had a great idea about the fact that there is not much scouting or talent identification process in India and I wanted to focus on that. The agents are not just agents, but they also become talent scouts.”

Bajaj added, “So, they are the ones who are going to find out the next talents. Hopefully, Aquila and we do justice to each other and we find great stars from Goa and even other regions. Hopefully, he can get us some new kids even for the World Cup batch. So it’s not only for seniors, it’s for juniors as well specifically as we really need to find the next talents.”

Praveen VC, the owner of the Kerala-based I-League club expressed, “It is a great partnership for us to grow and widen our scouting opportunities. We have difficulties in logistics to scout and watch matches entirely and analyse players outside Kerala. In such conditions, Aquila Sports will help us with their resources and send reports to us, which we will assess within our recruitment team.” The Malabarians finished sixth in the I-League last season. They are possibly looking to expand their pool of younger players and Aquila Sports Management will assist them in doing so.

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Moreover, Sanroy D’sousa also commented on his firm’s association with Gokulam Kerala and Minerva Academy. He remarked, “I would like to thank Ranjit bhai and Praveen sir for this wonderful opportunity. Goa has a huge talent pool which needs to be made visible to the other clubs. Unlike in the past we've seen a decrease in the number of Goan players in the national team. My most important priority is to make Goan football great again by bringing more players from the state to the I-League and ISL.”

D’sousa believes that the sidelining of the original prominent clubs of Goa from mainstream Indian football has caused a dearth of opportunities for the local players hailing from the coastal state. “Ever since the backing out of Dempo SC, Salgaocar FC and Sporting Clube de Goa, the platform for Goan players has drastically reduced. I want to create opportunities for the talented players in Goa to make a successful career for themselves and thus help the clubs to get the best players which will help them win more titles and honours,” he concluded.

Aquila Sports Management has already signed up the likes of Devendra Murgaonkar, Akeraj Martins, Aman Govekar, Richard Cardoz amongst others. Their partnership with these two bigwigs is still very ripe. It will arguably take some time for these alliances to generate the required results. Furthermore, it remains to be seen whether Aquila widens its wings to forge a similar collaboration with other clubs and academies too.