Gurr, working remotely from Scotland, and New Zealand-based McLae kick-start conversations between players and federations which have led to several senior international breakthroughs.
Gurr’s experience includes time spent as a coach, scout, and video analyst – but it was a volunteering role for the Football Federation of Samoa, aiding the nation of just 200,000 people in its search for players, which kindled his current venture.
“We’re trying to grow this and help as many nations as we can,” says Gurr.
“With Samoa, from 2021 to 2023 we found over 350 players. We found players in the Manchester City academy that are eligible, players in Spain, Qatar, China, Brazil, New Zealand, Australia.
“You wouldn’t believe where they are.”
Gurr estimates that from the players identified as eligible for Samoa, across all age groups in men’s and women’s football, about 60 debuts have so far been recorded.
Their work with the Cook Islands, a nation of just 10,000 people, has identified 50 players and led to 10 debuts in just one year.
Samoa coach Ibrom, who last year led the nation to back-to-back World Cup qualifying victories for the first time, said: “When Alastair reached out to me in 2021, it opened a conversation around what strategy we could develop in Samoa to enhance player identification.
“Once they’re identified, conversations can be facilitated by Alastair and Russ, or it can be as simple as a cold call – just this week I received a message from a potential player in the United States.
“We’ve had massive success as a result. Every country is trying to do this now to compete at a high level on the international stage. It has really positively impacted the Samoa football federation.”
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