“There’ll be thousands,” says Thomas Randolph, founder of Delphlyx, when asked whether talented African players may have missed out on big moves in the past.
Delphlyx works with Premier League clubs and ownership groups, and others across Europe, the United States and Mexico, to provide information on the best – and most relevant – 14 to 21-year-olds in West Africa, often through data, live scouting and private tournaments.
“We have over 19,000 players in Africa on our platform that you could just sit right here in London and watch, then pick up the phone, call one of them and organise a trial or a transfer. That just wasn’t happening before,” adds Randolph.
With a projected average age of just over 18, Randolph says the region is a “young, growing, developing space” – a “sporting mecca”. Football remains the main passion, though NFL and NBA are starting to invest in certain countries.
But Randolph disputes the idea African scouting is now saturated, citing a number of areas that remain relatively undiscovered, often because of conflict or logistics, with scouts drawn to the region’s biggest cities.
“Zadok Yohanna is a good example,” explains Randolph. “He moved to Brighton recently. He comes from Ikon Allah, which is a tiny and relatively unknown academy in northern Nigeria.
“The southern bit of Senegal is where Sadio Mane is from, where [Lamine] Camara is from, who Chelsea tried to sign, and there’s only one team down there. So within all these big countries, there are certain regions that are less scouted.”
Historically, it was agents who brought players out of Africa rather than scouts discovering them, whereas Delphlyx aims to help clubs identify and analyse certain talent first so scouts can visit specific tournaments or showcases to watch targets.
Randolph mentions eastern Mali, Togo, Guinea-Bissau and Burkina Faso but Benin, situated between Nigeria and Togo, is of particular interest for the way the country has invested federation grants in football infrastructure and pitches.
“One place they’ve used the Fifa money very well is Benin,” says Randolph. “It’s now produced probably a future female Ballon d’Or winner – Romaine Gandonou, who’s 15, just played at the Under-20 World Cup, and got the likes of PSG, Barcelona, everyone after her.
“Benin is going to be a country that over the next few years will become very interesting.”