Kenya’s Rova Sports Academy and Ligue 1 champions Olympique Lyonnais have signed a partnership that will see the two entities work closely to develop talents in the country for a period of three years until 2024.The confirmation of the partnership follows an earlier visit by a delegation of experts from the Olympique Lyonnais led by the Academy Director Jean-François Vulliez in September this year that carried out a sports diagnosis of the structure and jointly defined the axes of collaboration.The Academy’s founder Rose Maghas expressed her delight with the partnership, saying that it will be an avenue for raw talents in the country to go through a professional, well-structured academy.“I am extremely excited to be signing a partnership between Rova Sports Academy and the Olympique Lyonnais. This means that as a young academy we get to benefit from the expertise from one of the best youth academies in the world and that the raw talent in Kenya will get an opportunity to go through a well structured and professionally run academy program. It also signifies our commitment to our core values that are echoed by this partnership,” Magha’s is quoted on the academy’s portal.This partnership with @OL will surely help us enhance and enrich our sports activities in Kenya. Read more: https://t.co/PvkoLuS2gK pic.twitter.com/rRSjuEUhGc— Rova Sports Academy (@RovaAcademy) November 24, 2021 Rova SA is a private multisport academy that was launched in 2019 and was developed with the aim of developing wholistic Kenyan sportspersons and is based on the American model of education, offering an excellent “sport-study” project to support the best young talents from 10 to 17 years old to the top professional level.Olympique Lyonnais President Jean-Michel Antoine Aulas noted that the partnership was a step in the right direction for their international development approach, adding that the cooperation between the two will open doors in the future.“We are very happy to realize today a new step in our international development through the partnership with Rova Sports Academy. The wonderful project led by Rose MAGHAS and her teams fully illustrates OL’s desire to support structuring and lasting local initiatives to promote the emergence of female and male talents. This new cooperation opens the club’s doors to a new territory with great potential, which augurs rich exchanges both in human and structural terms” the President said.It is a great honour to announce the partnership between our clients @OL_English with Kenyan academy @RovaAcademyA first for OL in Anglophone Africa.@SportsCoAfric is proud to be associated.https://t.co/D0fnzOJQwG pic.twitter.com/QBbjU2nqug— Cynthia Mumbo (@CynMumbo) November 24, 2021 Kenya becomes the third country in Africa where the seven-time French Ligue 1 winners are setting up a strategic partnership, having successfully done so in Senegal and Morocco, the club becoming the first among the Top 20 European clubs to formalize elite technical cooperation with a local actor in Kenya.
