Six-time Europa League champions Sevilla FC had intended to strike a deal with one of the Indian Super League (ISL) clubs. But to their “surprise”, the deal fell through as that ISL side moved towards another top club of Europe, Sevilla CEO Jose Maria Cruz said.

The La Liga side, however, is all set to enter into an agreement with another Indian club soon. The CEO, though, didn’t divulge details as some formalities still remain to be worked out.

“We intended to sign an agreement with an ISL club. We had worked for some weeks through an Indian agent in order to make that agreement possible.

“But that team didn’t want to sign the agreement with Sevilla. Instead it did so with a top European club from another country. Our contact (in India) also didn’t apprise us of the actual scenario,” Cruz said during an online interaction on Wednesday.

“Nevetheless, we respect the club’s decision. We then decided to continue with another option. I cannot reveal the team, the city or the people who will be cooperate with us going forward, but I do hope that the Sevilla FC board of directors approves the signing of our agreement before the end of November so that we can start working from December onwards,” the CEO added.

The Spaniards had the option of signing up with another ISL club too, but they decided not to pursue. “When we started speaking to other co-owners of ISL clubs, the question to us was only about how much money we were ready to put in for them.

“But when we spoke to people of the club we are set to tie up with, they explained their project and said they didn’t need our money. They wanted our cooperation so that their team could grow.

“We saw that to some extent their mentality is similar to ours.”