A technological revolution is underway in football, as team owners turn to the latest data analytics and AI to gain a competitive edge in the battle for talent. As more professional investors buy into the sport and rules on spending get tighter, future champions will increasingly be created away from the pitch by teams of software engineers.Burnley Football Club training ground, host to the annual International Youth Tournament.
Huge amounts of money are flowing into the sport, and with financial rules putting the squeeze on spending, the search for talent has become a numbers game. AI-based sports science company, ai.io, is using data to help teams identify the perfect signing. What's really important is we have professional benchmarks so we will analyse all the players that we work with across the clubs. So we analyse the Chelsea players and those Burnley players again. And that creates a unique scoring system for each of those clubs, so it makes it really meaningful for the players to get some feedback. It also makes it really meaningful for the scouts.
We get information back on what they currently are in terms of their levels. And what then that allows us to do is to develop an individual learning plan for that player over the coming months.We know what the player needs to work on. And hopefully within that four-month period, as an example, they go back into the lab, and it'll inform us of what the progress of that player has made.It's just another aid and another tool in your recruitment process.
65 per cent of revenue spent on player wages, and that varies by the size of the club. The general pattern is that larger clubs with larger revenue spend a slightly smaller fraction than 65 per cent, and smaller clubs spend more than that. In terms of transfer fees, about 25 per cent of revenue goes on transfer fees.
Over the last decade data analytics in football has grown, but many are still struggling to use it to gain a competitive edge.