How Chelsea Are Using AI To Scout Academy Players
Chelsea and Burnley are just two clubs from across the world using AI to find future Premier League talents - and FourFourTwo were invited along to Chelsea’s Cobham training ground to speak to ai.io’s Richard Felton-Thomas about how they are working with the club and to test out whether or not we have what it takes to compete with top-tier footballers.
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00:00Richard, can you explain to me, like I'm five years old, what we do here in the I.O.Labs?
00:27Yes, so we've completely changed the process where players now can put their opportunity to trial for football clubs into their own hands.
00:34So just by downloading a mobile phone, they can enter trials for professional football clubs, for scholarships, for branded opportunities.
00:42And through our technology, it tracks all their movements and gives them scores in relation to what professional football players have.
00:48And that's all based on their gender and their age and their age group.
00:51So scouts can use that to go and scout them based on how good their data is.
00:56Then once they come to the club, this wonderful lab we're sitting inside now, they'll be trialled and tested inside this lab as well.
01:04So inside this lab, we've got gold standard sports science equipment that all the pros use.
01:08They'll come inside and they'll be tested and benchmarked against those pros as well.
01:11Can you tell me a little bit about who's currently using it?
01:14I can, yes. So in the UK, we have Burnley and Chelsea Football Club using it from the Premier League teams.
01:20We have a host of teams across League 2 and non-league and semi-pro that we're doing R&D testing with to see how it filters down the pyramid and gives players lots of opportunities across that.
01:29Broader than that, MLS. We have a deal with MLS that covers every team from their MLS next to their pro to their franchise teams as well.
01:38And then we're just starting to roll out multi-language as well, where you'll see some more things coming across different leagues all around the world.
01:44In relation to Chelsea, Burnley and the MLS side, what will they be getting out of this that they weren't previously getting?
01:50A lot of it's to do with efficiency and finding players in blind spots where they're not currently looking.
01:55There's 265 million players worldwide that want to play football to some level. You haven't got that many scouts.
02:03So what scouts tend to do is they'll go to the places where they found that talent before.
02:07And probably every kid in the UK at some point or globally said, how do I get a scout to watch me?
02:12They just don't have the time to see everyone. They don't have time to watch people's highlight reels.
02:16So they're looking for ways where they can get some data up front to say, this is worth my time.
02:21So that's what we provide to them through the mobile phone.
02:23It means a scout now can really target their time, go to the right place at the right time.
02:27The sustainability story there is an efficiency story. It just means they find the talent faster and sign them faster.
02:32Have they found any talent so far? Could you tell us about any success stories you've had?
02:36Yeah, we've had over 100 players now that have been signed, trialled or played for whether it's clubs or even national teams.
02:43We had some national team cases with Sri Lanka and Republic of Ireland where talent has been found.
02:47But yeah, Chelsea have signed players, Burnley have signed players.
02:50And this goes right from under nines through to the oldest has been a 19 year old.
02:54So it really covers the full spectrum of the ages of grassroots and amateur football.
03:00What do you sort of want to do with this next?
03:02Because obviously this is one amazing space age lorry.
03:05Is there plans to sort of roll this out for more clubs to make it more accessible?
03:08Or is the idea that it's sort of quite a sought after thing?
03:12Yeah, the mobile side would just be an all access.
03:15Lots of opportunity for players to come in and try to get that opportunity in that trial.
03:20With the labs, this packs up. I was talking about being like a big transformer.
03:23It rolls up together and it drives off and it goes to the next team.
03:28So anyone we work with will have opportunities to use the lab for their signed players and teams.
03:33Beyond that as well, using this in event spaces and fan engagement and taking it to grassroots tournaments.
03:38And, you know, that's all part of the plans as well.
03:40So people can expect to see us around with these labs.
03:43What does it currently not do that you'd like it to do or they might be able to do in the future?
03:48Yeah, it's a great question.
03:50The big thing for us at the moment is cognitive testing.
03:56It's one big pillar of the sport that clubs are really starting to engage with and starting to understand more and more.
04:02And there's a lot that still needs to be understood from that.
04:05What we can do with the lab is we can do some cognitive testing with the teams
04:08and see what makes sense so we can start to bring that to the mobile phone for the rest of the world to be able to access as well.
04:13So cognitive is a big coming pillar for us.
04:16Final question, most important one. How did 442's Ryan Darbs do in these trials?
04:21I'm going to have to say he did well.
04:24I know it pains me, but he did very well.
04:27So we went through the data.
04:29There was a couple of bits there around his explosivity and his reactive strength that he would want to work on from here.
04:35But actually, cognitive metrics and most of the power metrics and speed metrics, they were very good.
04:40Well done, Ryan. Well done.