From a young age, Keita has always been big on sports. He carried this passion through to university where he played rugby in his first and second year and was picked as captain of the Loughborough team. But along with his love for playing, in his early teens he became aware of and thus became somewhat burdened by the huge gap between the sporting talent and the people looking for the talent – the scouts.

“The moment a club wants to look for a player, they will send out one scout to a random game, or to a few games and if they pick someone up then fine, and if not, then so be it, which basically means a lot of talented players are going unrecognised and are not playing at the level they should be simply because they haven’t been seen.”

Keita adds: “A lot of those who don’t get seen are often penalised because they fit in a lower class or wealth bracket. It’s really a big issue.”

This led to him coming up with a concept which is basically a social media platform for footballers, and along with two partners, he launched it as a company called Skouted.

The business allows football players to upload their details and game and training video highlights online, allowing clubs to search by key filters such as age, playing position, location and so on and scroll through the players.

If anyone sparks an interest they will be able to contact them. Keita successfully lobbied his university to allow him to focus on the company full-time during what would normally be a placement year.

He now employs eight people and several interns, and is at Beta stage with 1,000 players and interest from Premier League through to Sunday league clubs, because the aim is not just about making everyone a professional, but matching people to their level of talent.

Revenue for the app, which has already had a private launch and is available on the app store, is generated through advertising. They have already started working with New Balance and Puma.

Skouted’s early success stories include a ten-year-old boy from America who has been invited to play with two Premier League clubs, two players who have been invited for extended trials at Watford and Manchester City and a player who has been signed to an overseas club – Kemi FC in Finland.

The company won backing from private investors, who Keita and his team approached on LinkedIn. As this magazine went to print, a public launch was scheduled for October.

In the future Keita aims to expand the platform to other sports, such as rugby and basketball. “We really want to make Skouted the hub of all sports,” he says.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

With a background in the corporate world, involved in a variety of businesses.