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A sports entrepreneur at 18, meet Sanroy D’Sousa — not your usual college kid
If you were to find yourself in any local match in and around Goa, there’s a high chance you would run into one of the most youngest and sharpest minds in the Indian football fraternity. Sanroy D’Sousa is not your usual college teenager. At 18, he has already initiated his own player representation agency, Aquila Sports Management, with an aim to contribute to the growth of Goan and Indian football.
“Football has been my passion from childhood,” reveals Sanroy in an exclusive interaction with The Bridge when asked about the reason he decided to start an agency. “I follow Indian football as well European and global football but Indian football has a special place in my heart.”
“I have been in this field for around two years, since then I have been in touch with many club officials and always looked to build good rapports. I figured it would be the ideal time for me to start my own company with the intention to help young players establish themselves and step up the career ladder,” he continues.
Initially, Sanroy started working with an Ahmedabad-based club where he helped them in recruiting two players from Dehradun. It was then that he first got a taste of how he could help young talented footballers. “Since then I started gaining more knowledge about the transfer system. More I learned about transfers, I got more confidence and it further sparked interest in me. Soon I realised many young players can be better directed to perform well on the field and eventually to achieve potential success. Motivated by thought promoting youngsters and confidence from my initial stints gave me the confidence to start this venture,” says Sanroy.
Easy as it may sound, player representation is not the easiest of jobs. There are many cons which come with it and to do it at 18, when your parents would rather have you cramming for college exams, it’s way more challenging. However, so far, everything has worked according to plan for Sanroy.
“The most important factor in such ventures is winning trust — be its player’s or club officials. Once that is done, one can have a solid foundation. Adding to this, support of your family and friends is crucial and I was lucky enough to have it. Coming towards the more technical aspects, it’s important that I had all basics covered. There are many factors that contribute to running an agency apart from just knowledge and contacts such as promotions, presentation skills, resources to do small important tasks etc. Thankfully, I had chalked out a plan for the long term and I was able to execute it well,” he says.
Sanroy remembers one valuable advice he received during an interaction with a reputed coach, ‘It doesn't matter how many players you sign for your agency, what matters is how many of your players are placed’.
He has complete faith in this ideology as he says, “Going by my work so far I can say that I am on the right track. We're looking forward and making our footballers rise high in their careers. It's this ideology the firm will revolve around and work around. As we grow we want to take the budding footballers along and together we reach remarkable heights.”
The B. Com student continues saying in the same vein about his future goals and aspirations for Aquila. “I would like to see my business move towards a promising future over the next few years. We would like to assist a number of players and also be among the country's top football agencies.We would also be trying to lay a foot on the overseas market for foreign players to come to India and beyond but before that we want to build a formidable base among Indian players in India.”
“It's no wonder that ISL clubs are now starting to send their scouts to the GPL to watch the matches and try these players. I hope we'll see many GPL players heading straight to the ISL in the coming years too. One of the primary motivations of 'Aquila Sports Management' will be to tap into young talents from Goa's local football circuit and assist them in reaching higher heights in Indian football,” Sanroy concludes.
