Leading the Line May 2013

leading the line bringing you all the latest news from scout May 2013

Looking to Make an Impact Disengaged pros look to impress scouts at FIFPro Winter Tournaments

also inside The intelligent Sports Framework Introducing Scout7’s brand new application Artificial Playing Surfaces What do players really think?

Samba beats coming to Provence Brazil conďŹ rmed for Toulon 2013 Tracking Solidarity Compensation alerts empowering Secretaries

Chairman’s Column W

elcome to the very first edition of a new revamped Leading the Line Magazine, from which we aim to bring you a blend of news and features involving Scout7, in addition to other wider features from across the football industry.

may not be aware of outstanding monies owed to their Club.

Over the course of the past twelve months, our in-house development team have been busy building a new platform designed to service the evolving requirements of scouting, recruitment and analysis staff at clubs around the world.

In the first of these we look at how two player tournaments organised by FIFPro this January have assisted out-of-work players in promoting their availability to clubs, during a time when the long-term future for many players remains uncertain due to tough economic conditions.

This work has culminated in the launch of a new Scout7 application this spring, the intelligent Sports Framework, which we are delighted to showcase extensively in this edition. It is a platform which we are confident will change the way many clubs access, administer and interrogate internal information.

In addition to providing training ground staff with a single central portal to manage crossapplication information, we are also pioneering functionality within the iSF framework which for the first time will help club administration staff in managing contract, bonus and outstanding compensation payments internally.

The first of these application widgets has been unveiled to coincide with the iSF launch and will empower clubs in establishing when FIFA solidarity payments are owed to them following a cross border transfer involving one of their former players.

More on this specific development can be found on page 20 and I would recommend that all Club Secretaries operating at all levels of the professional game have a look at this in greater detail, as it highlights a major issue where they

Elsewhere in this issue we are delighted to bring you two exclusive features focusing on a couple of major industry issues.

The second is provided by Loughborough University, who offer us a sneak preview at the preliminary results from an eighteen month study they have undertaken into elite player perceptions of artificial surfaces.

We are also delighted to report on the launch of two major international tournaments this summer, the 2013 Toulon Festival and the Spax Cup, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

We round off this edition with a Q and A with Wigan Athletic Chief Scout Kevin Reeves, which is a feature we hope to revisit regularly in future editions featuring other people involved in elite player recruitment at various levels of the professional game.

Enjoy reading this edition.

Scout7 Chairman

The Scout7 Team Chairman Mark Ansell Managing Director Lee Jamison Operations Director Bradford Griffiths Company Secretary Anthea Tape European Sales Manager Stephan Hanke Product Management Team Nick Bradshaw Jack Dodd

Business Development Team Simon Davison - UK, Netherlands, USA Jonathan Howard - UK Kevin Russell - UK (Scout7 Consulting) Jerome Lebatard - France Pierre Michaud - France Andreas Merkle - Germany Michel Pineda - Spain Nacho Gonzalez - Spain Mads Jørgensen - Scandinavia John Galas - USA

Development Team Iain Plimmer Neil Mountfield Bhupinder Sera Joe Perry Dipesh Bhundia Sam Ternent

Project Managers Andy Cooper Dean Margetts

Information Team Jonty Keeley Mike Philpotts Dani Szmid Bartek Sarzynski Marshall Gillespie Martin Harris

Contracts Manager Emma Field

Marketing Assistant Jenny Platts

3 PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL SOLUTIONS

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News & Feature Contents Introducing the intelligent Sports Framework................................... 6 Over the past twelve months the Scout7 development team have been busy fine-tuning new generation technologies. This work has culminated in the launch of a pioneering new platform, the intelligent Sports Framework.

Toulon Festival 2013.....................................................................12 Having helped the Mexico U23 side prepare for its successful London 2012 campaign last year, the annual Festival will be hosting 10 nations this May as part of their warm-up for this summer’s FIFA Under 20 World Cup.

Ricky van Haaren..........................................................................14 A profile on last year’s recipient of the John Haynes Trophy, the award handed out annually to the Toulon Festival’s Breakthrough Player.

FIFPro Winter Tournaments........................................................... 16 Away from the riches of the Premier League and other leading top flight domestic competitions around the world, tough global economic conditions are making it harder than ever for thousands of professional and elite semi-professional players to secure employment in the game. This January over 200 disengaged players took part in tournaments organised by FIFPro, the worldwide representative organisation for professional players. We ask what impact the events have had on their employment prospects.

The FIFPro Winter Tournament, Oslo

Tracking Solidarity Payments.........................................................20

Editorial & Acknowledgments

Since their introduction in 2001, it has been notoriously difficult for clubs to identify when they have been entitled player solidarity payments. However this may now be a thing of the past, thanks to a new pioneering feature within Scout7’s intelligent Sports Framework.

Editor Andy Cooper

The Scout Profile: Kevin Reeves................................................... 22

Other Contributors Paul Osei-Owusu, Loughborough University

A Q&A with the former England International and current Wigan Athletic Chief Scout.

SPAX Cup 2013.......................................................................... 24 In May 2013 the annual Ennepetal-based tournament will be celebrating its 40th anniversary and to celebrate they have invited some of the world’s leading Under 19 club sides to take part.

Artificial Playing Services: What do the Players Think?.................... 26 Despite the considerable advances in quality of artificial surfaces in recent years, their existence stills evokes memories of 1980s style plastic pitches installed at various Football League clubs.

Over the past 18 months, Loughborough University have travelled the world in an attempt to establish elite players’ perceptions of different playing surfaces. Now they are able to share some of their preliminary findings with us.

Image Credits Alain Revello VVV-Venlo Geir Ove Hauge/Idekompaniet Leeds United Football Club Bernard Platt Manchester City Football Club Stephan Kirsch

Scout7 Contact Details Head Office Faraday Wharf Birmingham Science Park Aston Holt Street, Birmingham, B7 4EB Telephone UK: 0844 568 5770 Int: 0044 845 386 5770

Scout7 Profile: Stephan Hanke................................................... 31 An introduction to Scout7’s European Sales Manager.

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Email info@scout7.com

An introduction to the ntelligent Sports Framework Scout7’s Pioneering New Data Management Application

F

or the past twelve years, Scout7 has been at the forefront of technical innovation in the field of scouting and recruitment in the professional game.

Since delivering the very first incarnation of the ProScout7 application back in 2001, recruitment workflows and processes within clubs have evolved considerably, thanks in part to the wide range of database, analysis and video solutions now available.

The direct knock-on effect of having these solutions at a club’s disposal has been the expansion of recruitment departments and the number of specialist staff employed to support the recruitment process, at all levels of the game.

Today a Chief Scout and Head of Recruitment are assisted by a dedicated team of support staff, comprising of technical scouts, analysts, data modellers, administrators and researchers, who are all employed to support and enhance the decision-making process, so a club can continuously make sound, well informed investments in their playing squad.

Even in League Two and the Conference, where clubs inevitably have to operate on smaller budgets, you will find a wide range of analysts and post-graduate interns assisting the club’s management team in helping them prepare for matches by clipping footage on upcoming opponents or supporting recruitment activities by clipping games involving prospects.

However as clubs have embraced a wide range

of solutions provided by different suppliers, often spread across different departments, there has been a growing need for clubs to access, interrogate and evaluate all this information together in one central location, accessed directly by a single login.

As a result of this requirement, Scout7 have spent the past twelve months developing a brand new solution designed to bring together all of this information on a single platform.

This has culminated in the introduction of the intelligent Sports Framework (iSF), which was launched earlier this spring.

A Solution for Everyone Although primarily a recruitment and training ground application, the iSF has been built to facilitate the management of any type of information managed privately across the football club, including match event data, player tracking, heart-rate monitoring and sports-science information, as well as all administration information managed by officebased staff at the stadium.

It has also been developed to provide Executive staff with an avenue to access key information quickly, allowing them to address any timecritical action immediately.

All the information is easily accessible from a wide range of different platforms, including PC, Laptop or iMac, as well as iPad, iPhone and other Apple or Android-enabled devices.

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A Personalised WidgetBased Application The iSF has been devised based on the concept that different members of staff will have their own specific requirements for accessing information depending on their role at the football club.

As a result, each club employee has the opportunity to customise their own desktop design, menu structure and dashboards within their own login.

On each dash, they can insert various different components and ‘widgets’ from a general menu selection. These widgets incorporate key functionality from applications successfully integrated into the iSF, which are arranged into four different categories: Personal, Recruitment, Executive and Training Ground.

The widgets are designed to assist in managing day-to-day requirements, whether it be for planning and scheduling, or studying private club information and quantitative data extracted from any of the integrated solutions.

A set-number of licenses are provided to a club for every widget incorporated into their solution, which can then be granted to different members of staff by an internal ‘Super Administrator’, who also has the ability to set up access level restrictions internally for each member of staff possessing an iSF login.

A breakdown of the iSF launch widgets The Recruitment Suite Scout7 specialise in pioneering recruitment solutions, which as a result has seen the company build an initial suite of iSF widgets designed to take a club to the next level in terms of intelligent recruitment management – evolving a number of practices that have been managed historically through the company’s ProScout7 Application.

Competition Stats The Competition Stats widget enables club staff to view a detailed breakdown of player and team-based statistics for any domestic league around the world covered in the ProScout7 database. Staff can set-up several different competition lists, split across the iSF dashboard and into different ‘tabs’.

This enables them to organise their access to various competitions based on how they wish to monitor key recruitment leagues and manage their flow of recruitment data.

The user can add multiple leagues to different lists, enabling them to structure their iSF in various different ways: by region, nation, age, league or recruitment priority.

In addition, all data displayed can be backdated by matchday, enabling users to view the fluctuating standings from different stages of the season.

A small selection of data stored in Competition Stats for France Ligue 1

Fixture Calendar The Fixture Calendar widget allows club staff to add collective league fixtures or individual team fixtures played throughout the current season to a single calendar in their iSF. Once a team or league has been added to a calendar, all their fixtures will appear in a prepopulated display which defaults to the current month.

Once a league or team’s fixtures have been added, further fixtures from different leagues or teams can be added to the same Fixture Calendar.

Alternatively these matches can be added to a brand new calendar, which can be given a different name and placed on either the same dashboard or on a brand new tab.

Each Fixture Calendar also incorporates intelligent functionality which enables club staff to obtain key information relevant to any match such as date, time and location.

The Fixtures Calendar incorporates intelligent map functionality for all game venues

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The Recruitment Suite (Continued) Scouting History The Scouting History widget provides club staff with a complete overview of all of their scouting activity throughout their time at the club, together with details of all other reports completed by other staff whose work they have been granted access to by the Club’s iSF administrator.

Presented in a Calendar format, the widget lists the following information and functionality: • All Player Reports and Match Reports completed in ProScout7 by the user, and all other reports which the user has access to.

• All players flagged in ProScout7 by the user and by other scouts which the user has access to.

• In addition to the full overview, the user can filter the calendar presentation by scout name, so they can view just the reports done by any individual user.

• Each Report and Flagged icon incorporates a link, which opens up the information stored in ProScout7 when selected.

A calendar display, highlighting the club’s scouting activity during the current month

Scouting Planner The Scouting Planner enables the club’s Chief Scout and Scouting Coordinator to manage every aspect of their scouting operation on the iSF platform.

In addition to assigning specific assignments to individuals, the Planner allows club administrators to manage all organisational aspects of the programme, which can be monitored centrally by both senior staff and regional scouts. As well as the central Planner, individual planners can also be set-up for each scout.

The widget allows staff to do the following: • Assign Scouts to any fixture and specify the assessment type. Assessments can be assigned via iSF, ProScout7, or Scout7 Training Ground.

• Automatically add assessments to the personal Planners of individual scouts.

• Manage general office tasks including tickets, travel, parking, accommodation and expenses.

• Send email notifications to scouts.

• View all Scouting Events in a single calendar or filter to individual staff.

• Cross reference the Planner with the club’s Scouting History. .

• Utilise maps to highlight any other fixtures taking place close to the venue of each game.

A list of upcoming match and player assignments on the Scouting Planner

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The Personal Suite Each individual iSF login is the personal dashboard for that specific member of staff.

Therefore the Personal suite of widgets are designed to help the user manage their day-to-day responsibilities at the club.

Personal Diary The Personal Diary widget enables club staff to build their own online diary on the iSF Framework.

Each member of staff can add their own personal appointments into their diary, as well as link their diary to existing Calendardriven widgets already stored within the iSF framework, which once selected auto-populate calendar events from an iSF calendar into the staff’s own schedule.

The diary defaults to showing a month-to-month view, with various different icons appearing to highlight specific events currently scheduled.

The Personal Diary incorporates the following key functionality:

The presentation of an individual personal diary

• The ability to add new events, filed by date and time.

• Insert recurring daily, weekly and monthly events.

• Insert email reminders for key events.

• Link existing calendar-based widgets to the diary, including the Fixture Calendar and Scouting History.

• Create brand new club specific sharedcalendars and incorporate them to the Personal Diary.

• Colour code each calendar to differentiate on the Personal Diary display.

Embedded content from an RSS news feed

News Feed The News Feed widget enables club staff to create various different streams of football news into their iSF dashboard, set to specific criteria, through attaching RSS feeds to different widgets.

Once a widget has been created and given a name, the user can choose from an archive of RSS feeds, filed by country and competition, to pick up breaking news involving a specific player, team or league.

Notes The Notes widget allows users to add various private notes and reminders to their iSF dashboard.

All saved notes appear in a list, with the newest appearing at the top, and can be edited or deleted when actioned.

An example display of the three Personal Widgets on an iSF dashboard

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The Training Ground Suite The Training Ground suite encompasses third-party data from GPSports, a world leader in providing GPS based performance enhancement technologies for sport, together with integrated functionality from Scout7’s Training Ground application.

GPSports Widget GPSports devices help clubs to accurately measure distance, speed, acceleration, heart rate, bodyload and impacts, all in real time, which has revolutionised how teams plan and assess their athletes, training, recovery and rehabilitation interventions.

The GPSports Widget presents squad-related physical training data, integrated from a club’s GPSports tracking devices.

The widget highlights the potential level of injury risk for any player in the squad, based upon their current training schedule and overtraining markers, presenting Risk Alerts in a clear dayto-day view.

Users can also access a series of summary graphs taken from the physical outputs of players on a per session basis.

Once expanded, the widget incorporates the following: • Flags to highlight the level of injury risk (Red for serious, Orange for secondary risk, Green for all clear).

• Integrated average daily running load graph.

• Distance covered in each recent session.

• Heart rate excursion graph for each fitness session.

A list of squad injury risk alerts in the GPSports widget

Youth Recruitment Suite The Youth Recruitment suite enables the club’s Academy Recruitment operation to manage its scouting processes on the iSF, mirroring the central workflow already in place on the Framework for the senior operation.

The Youth Recruitment suite includes: • Direct integration into the Scout7 Training Ground Recruitment module.

• A Youth Fixtures Widget, which enables users to pre-populate fixtures of interest.

• A Youth Scouting History Widget, which highlights all Match Reports, Player Reports, Shortlisted and Recommended Players on a Calendar display.

• A Youth Scouting Planner, which can be overlaid with the senior scouting planner, allowing a full overview of all club recruitment activities across the entire Football Club.

• Displays can also be filtered to show all recruitment data, or data entered by individual members of the recruitment team.

A list of youth prospect players recommended by a club scout

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The Executive Suite The iSF Executive Suite provides Club Executives with a selection of widgets tailored for their own personal use.

The Suite includes: • Scout7.tv Live: Allowing the Executive to watch a live stream of club games via the iSF (subscription required).

• Club Fixtures: A full list of all fixtures for each club squad in a single widget.

• Club News: Filtered information to show only RSS feeds related to their club.

• Solidarity Payments: To keep track of financial payments owed to the club in the event of crossborder transfers involving a current or former club player (more details on this functionality can be found on page 20).

A stream of Everton vs Tottenham Hotspur from Scout7.tv Live

Several further innovations due to be launched in 2013 Following the initial launch, Scout7 are also working on several additional releases which will result in further widgets being incorporated onto the iSF platform in time for the start of the 2013/14 season. These will include:

Customisable Reports Clubs that migrate to the iSF Framework will have the ability to build their own bespoke Player and Match Assessment templates.

Once the club has defined a template, they will also be able to use a new advanced search facility to interrogate report information, allowing them to identify recurring results and potentially establish number driven indicators to further optimise their scouting processes.

Customisable Reports will incorporate the following: • Player, Team and Fixture information from the ProScout7 database.

• Match Diagram functionality.

• Fully customisable Player Rating systems, using matrices or numeric ratings for specific player attributes.

• The ability to create averages and aggregates from groups of attribute ratings.

• Optimised Print Export, allowing A4 Portrait printing.

Clubs can build their own templates for each position to optimise player assessment

The iSF - Keeping a Club Ahead of the Game Moving forward, the intelligent Sports Framework will provide clubs with an essential support tool to help ensure they remain at the cutting edge of information management.

For more information on the intelligent Sports Framework, please contact Scout7 at info@scout7.com

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Toulon Festival announce line-up of elite nations for 2013 D

etails have been announced for the 41st Festival International Espoirs de Toulon et du Var, which will be taking place from 28th May-8th June.

Having traditionally featured eight teams, made up of at least one nation from each single FIFA Confederation, this year the tournament has been expanded to include ten U20 teams as a result of many of the participants wanting to use the event as a warm-up for their participation at the FIFA Under 20 World Cup, an event which is taking place in Turkey less than a fortnight after the Festival.

In total seven nations that have qualified for those finals will be involved at Toulon: France, Portugal, South Korea, Nigeria, United States, Colombia and Mexico. The latter two nations are returning to Europe this year having claimed the last two Toulon Festival titles in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

The CAF Federation will also be represented by the Democratic Republic of Congo, who earlier this season knocked Cameroon out of the African Under 20 Championships at the final qualification stage.

The lineup is completed by two nations, who for different reasons will arrive in France with wellrespected reputations that they will be looking to maintain.

The first is Belgium, whose reputation for producing world-class professionals from a relatively small pool of players is the envy of many smaller nations around the world, whilst the second is five-times world champions at Under 20 level, Brazil.

The Brazilians are in fact the reigning World Champions at this level, having won the last U20 World Cup in 2011, which was held in Colombia.

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Unfortunately they will be unable to defend their title this year following their shock elimination at the 2013 CONMEBOL Sudamericano in January, which means that their participation at Toulon will be the only opportunity for clubs to scout their vast array of talent at a major tournament in Europe this year.

Toulon’s expansion is not just reflected in the number of teams taking part either, as two new venues will also be in use at the competition for the very first time.

One of these venues is the recently renovated Stade Leo Lagrange in Toulon, which features a new stand with a unique arched roof, then after spending the first two days of competition in the Toulon area the tournament will head west to Nimes, where matches will be played across two days at the Stade des Costières.

For the last six years, Scout7 have managed

the Festival’s scouting accreditation and onsite support, which has included supplying scouts with their own official accreditation pack, which incorporates passes to each stadium, a tournament notebook and a map, as well as official teamsheets for every match.

This year Scout7 will also be nominating the official man-of-the-match after every game, based on feedback from scouts in attendance.

The 2013 Festival will be looking to emulate the success of last year’s 40th anniversary edition, which was made into an Under 23 competition in order to allow five nations to use the event as preparation for their participation at the 2012 Olympic Games.

The tournament was won by Mexico, who went on to win Olympic Gold in London after beating Brazil 2-1 in the final at Wembley.

The Brazilians will now have an opportunity to inflict a degree of revenge for that defeat as the two nations have been drawn together in Group B. The players selected for Brazil will also be looking to emulate some of their illustrious compatriots, including Kaka and Diego, who both played at Toulon during the early stages of their career before going on to becoming major global superstars.

For further information on the 2013 Festival International Espoirs de Toulon et du Var and details of accreditation, please contact Scout7 at info@scout7.com.

Toulon Festival 2013 Schedule Group A 28th May: 17.30 Colombia vs South Korea (Stade Leo Lagrange, Toulon) 28th May: 19.30 France vs USA (Stade Leo Lagrange, Toulon) 30th May: 17.30 Colombia vs USA (Stade des Costieres, Nimes) 30th May: 19.30 France vs DR Congo (Stade des Costieres, Nimes) 1st Jun: 15.30 DR Congo vs USA (Stade du Ray, Nice) 1st Jun: 17.30 France vs South Korea (Stade du Ray, Nice) 3rd Jun: 17.30 DR Congo vs South Korea (Parc des Sports, Avignon) 3rd Jun: 19.30 France vs Colombia (Parc des Sports, Avignon) 5th Jun: 17:00 South Korea vs USA (Stade Louis Hon, Saint-Raphael) 5th Jun: 19:00 Congo DR vs Colombia (Stade Louis Hon, Saint Raphael)

Group B 29th May: 17.30 Mexico vs Nigeria (Stade Perruc, Hyeres) 29th May: 19:30 Belgium vs Brazil (Stade Perruc, Hyeres) 31st May: 17.30 Belgium vs Portugal (Stade des Costieres, Nimes) 31st May: 19.30 Brazil vs Mexico (Stade des Costieres, Nimes) 2nd Jun: 17.30 Belgium vs Nigeria (Parc des Sports, Avignon) 2nd Jun: 19.30 Brazil vs Portugal (Parc des Sports, Avignon) 4th Jun: 17.00 Mexico vs Portugal (Stade Louis Hon, Saint-Raphael) 4th Jun: 19.00 Brazil vs Nigeria (Stade Louis Hon, Saint-Raphael) 6th Jun: 17:30 Nigeria vs Portugal (Stade Leo Lagrange, Toulon) 6th Jun: 19.30 Belgium vs Mexico (Stade Leo Lagrange, Toulon)

Knock-Out Stages 8th Jun: 15.30 3/4 Place Game (Stade du Ray, Nice) 8th Jun: 17.30 Final (Stade du Ray, Nice)

John Haynes Trophy At the conclusion of the Festival, Scout7 will be awarding the John Haynes Trophy to the tournament’s Breakthrough Player.

It will be the sixth occasion that the company has presented the award, which reflects the philosophy shared by Scout7 and the Festival organisers of identifying young emerging prospects during the early stages of development.

More information on the other individual player awards at the Festival, including a full list of previous winners, can be found on the tournaments official website www.festivalfoot.espoirs.com

2010: Mike Lindemann Jensen (Denmark)

2008: Emmanuel Koné (Cote d’Ivoire)

2009: Gerson Martinez (Chile)

2011: Ulises Dávila (Mexico)

2012: Ricky van Haaren (Netherlands)

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Ricky van Haaren Winner of the 2012 John Haynes Trophy A

s several dozen of the players selected to represent their nations at the 2012 Toulon Festival arrived in the south of France with more than half an eye on securing selection for the upcoming Olympic Games, one player had more reason than most to put in a series of eyecatching performances.

Following his positive contribution from central midfield in the Dutch team’s run to third place, featuring in all five of the nation’s fixtures, Ricky van Haaren ended the tournament receiving plaudits from teammates and pundits alike, culminating in him being awarded the John Haynes Trophy as the Festival’s breakthrough player.

However in the weeks leading up to the tournament, his eventual selection for it was far from guaranteed.

Following just nine first team appearances for Feyenoord in 2011/12, all from the bench, van Haaren was informed that his contract would not be renewed when it expired in the summer.

It meant that for the first time in his professional career, he would enter the close season looking for a new club and all the uncertainty that went with it.

He had however remained in the thoughts of the coach of the Dutch National Beloften Team, Adrie Koster, who had selected him to play in a friendly against the Denmark U20 team in the spring before then calling him up to the squad for the Festival.

Factfile Born: 21 June 1991, Rotterdam Nationality: Netherlands Height: 173 cm/ 5’ 8” Weight: 71 kg Primary Position: Central Midfield Leading Foot: Right Previous Clubs: Excelsior (Schoolboy), Feyenoord (2005-2012) Current Club: VVV-Venlo

For van Haaren this faith meant a great deal, and now looking back he feels that the debt he felt he owed his coach was reflected in his performances, which were also influenced by his own desire to prove any doubters that he could still play professional football at the highest level.

“For sure, when you are on the bench at your club it is hard” says van Haaren.

Capped by Netherlands at every level from U17-Jong Oranje

For the player himself, the fact the award is chosen by industry officials makes it even more special.

“When you are playing for a Dutch team too, you sometimes worry (about your selection).

But the coach and the rest of the team always gave me a good feeling and they were a big part in me playing well in that tournament. I had the feeling that I had to payback their belief in me.

“Sure, recognition from people whose profession is to watch and judge players is always really important.

“(Being out of contract) was for me just extra stimulus. I wanted to show all my teammates that Ricky van Haaren could still play some good football. And I think I delivered, by winning the prize for Breakthrough Player.”

“They just watch and judge the players.”

Before the tournament began, van Haaren admits that he knew very little about the Festival, however with media attention focusing on the nations preparing for London 2012, he quickly realised the tournament meant a big deal.

After topping their group following wins over Egypt and Turkey, the Netherlands faced Mexico in the semi-finals, where despite being on the losing side, van Haaren made a strong impression by scoring both of his team’s goals in a 4-2 defeat.

The nucleus of that Mexico team went on to major success in London, where they not only won Gold, but went the entire tournament unbeaten.

Having had first-hand experience of going head-to-head with them, van Haaren was not surprised by their success.

“No, I was not surprised at all,” says the 21 year old.

“The Mexican team were the best opponent we faced during the tournament and I thought it was no surprise that they won the Final.

Total Career Eredivisie Apps/Goals: 49/1 2012/13 Apps: 29 (24 starts, 16 full games)

match, van Haaren was given the accolade of Breakthrough Player, an award which carries significance as it is awarded by Scout7 following consultation with attending scouts working on behalf of clubs and in conjunction with the French coaching union, UNECATEF.

“They also put in a great performance at the Olympics in London. It was total football from those guys!”

Having also played a key role in the Dutch side’s victory over France in the third place play-off

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“I mean, it is their job, they are not influenced by partisan preference of players from a specific team or country.

After the tournament came to an end, van Haaren was able to secure his future prior to the new season getting underway, signing a two year contract with Eredivisie side VVV-Venlo.

Despite enduring a difficult season, with his side currently sitting in the bottom third of the league table, van Haaren has managed to establish himself in the club’s first team, appearing in over 75% of his teams fixtures.

Only two outfield players have featured in more games than him so far.

He has also notched up a number of appearances for the Dutch U21 team, which means he is surely in the running for securing a spot in the Jong Orange squad for the UEFA Under 21 Championships taking place in Israel this June.

Despite that, he still feels that he has an awful lot to do before he can consider himself as an established player – and despite his achievements last summer, he feels that they will have little bearing on his potential selection this summer.

“I do not see myself as an international footballer, first I have to make it in the Dutch league,” he stresses.

“I don’t think last year’s tournament will affect my chances for this summer either, the trainer Cor Pot is judging us on our performances right now, not the ones from a tournament that is in the past.”

Whilst Toulon 2012 may have been consigned to history, the career of Ricky van Haaren today is looking anything but.

Disengaged players look to impress at FIFPro events

By Andy Cooper

A

way from the riches of the Premier League and other leading top flight domestic competitions around the world, tough global economic conditions are making it harder than ever for thousands of professional and elite semi-professional players to secure employment in the game.

According to figures published by the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, Premier League clubs spent a combined ÂŁ120 million in transfer fees during the 2013 January transfer window, whilst top flight clubs in Italy spent around 70% of that figure during the same period. The collective teams in 1. Bundesliga and Ligue 1 also spent 30-45% of the Premier League figure each.

However this spending at the top end of the professional game is masking a significant change in the player labour market in many other domestic professional leagues around the world.

Like many other global industries, the football industry has not been immune from the financial crisis engulfing many parts of Europe, which has seen clubs enter administration, file for bankruptcy or even dissolve altogether.

It has also resulted in major cuts to playing budgets at many professional clubs, which has resulted in clubs operating with smaller squads, with players on lower wages and shorter contracts, which is leading to several thousand

players facing an uncertain long-term future.

Even in England over forty players were released from Football League clubs in January, as clubs elected not to extend halfseason contracts or mutually agreed to cancel season-long arrangements early.

It means that one of the key challenges facing various domestic Player Unions around the world is supporting members as they look to secure future employment, either in a playing capacity or in retraining for a new life outside of football.

This January, ten such Unions got involved in participating in two separate tournaments

organised by FIFPro, the worldwide representative organisation for professional players.

this is reflected in a lower number of players who participate in our tournaments who are able to go on to find a club.

The tournaments gave over 200 disengaged players, who were actively playing in summer leagues last year, the opportunity to showcase their abilities in front of club scouts as they looked to secure employment in time for the start of their new domestic season this spring.

“This is not as a result of dropping standards or a lower ability level of players, I think it is more a result of clubs becoming more conservative in their recruitment.

The first of the tournaments, the FIFPro Winter Tournament, took place in Oslo, Norway and in addition to the host nation featured teams from Sweden, Finland and Ireland.

At almost the same time the FIFPro Torneo America was held in South America and featured six nations: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay.

Both competitions are spin-offs of the summer FIFPro Tournament, which was first held in 2008 to promote out-of-contract players operating in key European winter leagues.

Although each tournament gave the participating players an opportunity to perform in front of potential employers, FIFPro’s Tijs Tummers is under no illusions of the task facing them in securing future work.

“Since the first staging of the FIFPro Tournament five years ago, the number of players actively involved in professional football has dropped,” says Tummers.

“Clubs are employing fewer professional players than they once did and unfortunately

“In a number of leagues around the world, clubs struggle to offer a reasonable salary to those squad players who are not seen as being part of their strongest eleven.

“A number of teams end up using young players coming out of their own youth system to add depth to their squad, as it offers a cheaper solution.

In contrast, the Winter Tournament is more regionalised and focuses heavily on attracting scouts from professional Scandinavian clubs, who are currently in the process of putting together the final touches to their first team squad ahead of the new season.

At this tournament the Norway Team was coached by the former International and Leeds United midfielder Eirik Bakke, who himself had only just retired as a player at the end of the 2012 domestic Norwegian season.

He believes that although most of the club representatives at the tournament would have been familiar with the players, one of the key benefits of the competition was that it allowed the competing players to perform in competitive games.

“Costs apart, I also think a lot of clubs in certain countries are reluctant to invest in players from overseas because of the extra work required in supporting them in settling into a new culture, which includes arranging places for them to live and sorting out their travel in and out of work.

“Most of our players were from the first, second and third tier of Norwegian football, so the scouting departments at Norwegian clubs already knew about them before the tournament started,” he says.

“This is a shame because we have seen previous examples of players, especially from our tournament in South America, successfully going on to playing again at the highest level.”

“What was good about the tournament though is that it gave the players an opportunity to show a club what they can do in a competitive match environment.

Each year, the South American tournament generates interest from clubs all across the Americas, Europe and Asia because it features players from Brazil, which according to FIFPro are exporting the largest number of players to overseas leagues around the world, together with Argentina and Colombia, who are second and third in that list respectively.

“I cannot stress how difficult it is for a player to come into a club on trial and make an impression, because all you are really doing is joining the squad to take part in training, which makes it difficult to stand out.

Continued on page 18, column 1

In the first two years of the tournament we had Trevor Croly in charge, but he was appointed as the new Manager of Shamrock Rovers in the autumn and was unavailable this year.

“Pat brought with him a wealth of experience to the job, but in many ways his job was made easier by the attitude shown by the players.

“The players had to be self-motivated, as they were not being paid to play and were coming off their own free will, so they were determined to give a good account of themselves. Pat’s job was to mould them into a team and get them to fit into his shape.

“By all accounts they thoroughly enjoyed the sessions he put on, as well as the whole experience generally.”

One of the challenges faced by all of the coaches involved in both tournaments was balancing the need for the players to give a good account for themselves in front of scouts, whilst at the same time not compromising the team ethic.

Team PFAI’s Dean Marshall (Ireland) in action against Team NISO (Norway) “That said, I think that the biggest single factor in a player being able to get a contract comes down to that player’s own desire to earn one.

“If you want it enough you will end up getting it and if you are not willing to put the work in that is required you won’t, it is as simple as that.

“It is not about luck, it is about how hard you work and how hard you train.”

As Bakke alluded to, the event in Oslo did not only cater for top flight professional players, but it also included young players who at the time had only had experience of semi-professional football in the lower leagues, which gave them a unique opportunity to mix with more experienced players both on and off the pitch.

All four teams which took part assembled their squads and spent time together in the days leading up to the event and as FIFPro paid for all travel and accommodation for each of the teams, it meant each Union could focus on preparing their playing squad for their participation.

“Considering the little time we had, I was surprised to see how good the players were in integrating themselves as a team. There was a real spirit amongst them and a great team ethic.

“They also showed a lot of hunger and a willingness to work hard in training, which as a coach is exactly what you want to see.”

Whilst the three Scandinavian teams spent a few days together prior to the competition, the Irish squad of eighteen spent several weeks together before Christmas to fully integrate themselves into a club-style environment.

The Association went even so far as appointing a coach in Pat Scully who just weeks before the group assembled, had led Limerick to promotion to the Airtricity Premier League.

Ollie Cahill, Player Executive at the PFAI and a former player himself accompanied the Irish team to the tournament.

He believes there were many different motivations within the party for getting involved.

Whilst recognising the difficulty in striking the balance, Cahill thinks that the players themselves recognised it was not in their best interests to work against the team ethic once the competition began.

“In training we spent a lot of time setting up our team shape and we openly encouraged the players to express themselves on the pitch, but not to the general detriment to the rest of the team,” he points out.

“We think that the fact the players spent so many weeks together beforehand helped create a strong team ethic anyway and this was reflected in the overall performances.

“I can imagine it would be easy to take a selfish approach, especially when the end-game objective is to secure yourself a contract, but I think the players recognised that if they didn’t play the team game it would have been very quickly picked up by the scouts watching.

“If you are a winger and try to take too many players on at once, rather than picking out a man in the space with a simple pass then it is going to reflect badly on you as an individual.”

“We had three days together,” says Bakke, 35.

“After meeting up on the Sunday, we trained with 26 players on the Monday and Tuesday before cutting the squad down to 18 and holding a final day’s training on the Wednesday.

This level of preparation was very similar to that of the Swedish and Finnish teams.

“We had a real mix of players. We had one Icelandic senior international and others with experience of playing abroad, including in England. We also had some young players who had been playing in the lower divisions.

“For those young players this was a very valuable experience, because at their age they won’t always know what it takes to be a professional.

“It is not just about how you perform in games, it is about how you train and how you look after yourself outside of football too. It was a message I kept drilling into the players after every session and every game.

“The main reason why we took part is because the vast majority of players in Ireland, between 90-95% across the top two leagues, are out of contract at the end of each season,” says Cahill.

“We prepare for the competition as if we were a club. The squad was given six weeks to train together beforehand, overseen by a coach and a support team, but each player’s motivation for taking part is different.

“Some want to maintain their fitness during the off-season, whilst others go with the intention of looking to impress scouts working for Scandinavian clubs.

“Others just want to return to Ireland in a better physical condition than others looking for a contract, which gives them a better opportunity to impress on trial.

“We were also very fortunate to bring in someone of Pat’s caliber to coach the team.

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The Irish team ended up being one of three teams who ended the tournament unbeaten during normal time – they lost to Bakke’s Norway side in their first game on penalties but comfortably beat Finland in the third place match 2-0.

The final itself also went to penalties, where Norway narrowly lost to Sweden 3-2.

Bakke himself was satisfied with the performance shown by his team, but also recognised that their performances at the tournament in isolation will not be enough for them to secure a club contract in the long-term.

“It was hard for every single player to make an impression, because we only played two sixty-minute games which meant not everyone got the game time they may have wanted, but overall I was very happy with how they performed,” he says.

“In the second half of our final game, you

could really see some of the players building in confidence and gaining good momentum, which showed in their performance. They really went up a gear.

“I told them afterwards that they needed to take that momentum and maintain it when they next go into a club on trial.”

Since the tournament ended, half of the Irish squad have already secured deals with clubs for the new season. The tournament MVP, Sweden’s Adnan Çirak, has also managed to secure a professional contract in the United Kingdom, signing for Stockport County in England. Çirak’s deal is significant because prior to the FIFPro event he had never played higher than the third tier of Swedish domestic football, which suggests that the tournaments can provide any player, irrespective of their background, with a platform to showcase what they can offer to a prospective employer.

It also offers hope for those players who have yet to sort their futures out for the new season.

Of those in the Norwegian squad, a number of players are still looking for contracts and Bakke, who is now working in the scouting department at the club he ended his playing career, Sogndal, has been giving references to a number of clubs interested in looking at some of the players he coached in Oslo.

He explains: “I have had a few clubs in the second and third tier contact me asking for my opinion on some of the players, and I know that a lot of them earned trials and some are already under contract for the new season, which just shows how good it can be for players to be involved in this tournament.”

Over in Ireland, Cahill is confident that all of the players in the Irish squad will have found clubs in the coming weeks.

“Based on previous experience, every single player who has travelled to FIFPro with us has managed to get fixed up for the new season,” he says.

“So far historically none of our players have managed to earn a deal at a Scandinavian club.

“There have been one or two offers put on the table, but for whatever reason a final agreement has failed to materialise.

“Of this year’s group, I think that most players have secured agreements for the new season and of those that have yet to win a contract,all of them are training with clubs, so I am confident they will be able to sort their futures out soon.”

With regards to FIFPro itself, the organisation has plans to further improve the visibility of each player who takes part in one of its tournaments during the year.

As well as taking steps to encourage more club scouts to attend in person, one of the plans currently under consideration is to stream all of the games live online via the FIFPro website, which would also mean that they can provide post-match video of games featuring specific players upon request.

Tummers believes that these improvements, together with the expansion of the tournament model into other parts of the world, will help participating players immensely as they consider their future, irrespective of whether they wish to continue as an active professional or semi-professional player, or if they elect choose a new career path altogether.

“The FIFPro Tournament is a great experience for the players who take part, for many different reasons,” he says.

“As well as offering them an opportunity to find another club, it allows them to mix with other players facing the same dilemmas they face, so they can share experiences.

“Unfortunately we have to be realistic and accept that a lot of the players that take part in the tournaments will not be able to continue playing professionally, but at least by being involved they can say to themselves that they have done everything they could to carry on playing.

“That in itself may make the decision to seek an alternative career an easier one.”

The sixth edition of the main annual FIFPro tournament is provisionally scheduled to take

Winter Tournament MVP Çirak secured a pro deal at Stockport County place in the Netherlands on 20-21 July, in the town of Rijnsburg.

Plans are also in place to stage another summer FIFPro tournament in Switzerland, which will feature teams from central and Eastern Europe.

This is provisionally scheduled for 6th-7th July.

Fixtures, Squads and Results from all FIFPro Tournaments played this season are available now in Scout7’s ProScout7 application database.

“I cannot stress how difficult it is for a player to come into a club on trial and make an impression.

All you are really doing is joining the squad to take part in training, which makes it difficult to stand out.

“That said, I think that the biggest single factor in a player being able to get a contract comes down to that player’s own desire to earn one.

“If you want it enough you will end up getting it and if you are not willing to put the work in that is required you won’t, it is as simple as that.”

Eirik Bakke, Team NISO Head Coach 19 PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL SOLUTIONS

Tracking Solidarity Alerts enabling clubs to claim outstanding payments S

on loan, even if it was just for a fleeting period, during the early stages of their career.

Under FIFA rules, any club involved in the education of a player between the ages of 1223 are entitled to these payments whenever that player is involved in a cross-border transfer that involves a fee.

Due to the mass turnover of players at clubs every season (2,557 different professionals made at least one appearance across the Premier League and Football League alone during 2011/12), it can be very hard for staff to be aware of when one of their former players moves cross-border, especially if the move occurs between two different clubs who are based overseas.

ince their introduction in 2001, it has been notoriously difficult for clubs to identify when they have been entitled to player solidarity payments.

These rules remain in place throughout the player’s active professional career, so even if they are transferred to an overseas club well into their thirties or beyond, clubs can still claim a percentage of the fee.

The regulations state that 5% of the transfer fee has to be divided pro-rata between every club involved in that player’s football education over the 12 season period.

This includes any club who had the player on loan at any time before they turned 24, which means that Football League and Conference clubs would also be entitled to part of the compensation if they had the young player in

Therefore in a bid to assist them in identifying when outstanding payments are owed, Scout7 have developed a brand new Solidarity Payment widget, which following a period of consultation with a number of clubs across the English game was launched earlier this year.

It enables club administrators to be immediately notified of any transfer involving one of their former players as and when it takes place, which is vital because clubs only have two years to claim their solidarity from the player’s new club, otherwise their payment is no longer eligible.

The red flag in the Solidarity Payment widget highlights that the club is entitled to a payment

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How to access the Scout7 Solidarity Payment Widget As with many other of Scout7’s pioneering new initiatives, the Solidarity Payment widget can be found on Scout7’s brand new intelligent Sports Framework (iSF).

Licenses are available to purchase for all clubs on a user-by-user basis, which can then be delegated internally to the appropriate members of staff.

As already documented extensively in this edition of Leading the Line, the iSF is an online platform which enables clubs to build their own intelligent and bespoke framework, using centrally integrated administration, scouting and performance data.

The platform can potentially integrate private club information supplied by any of the club’s preferred partners, including all solutions currently provided by Scout7 to the football industry.

The Chief Executive’s View Shaun Harvey, Leeds United The advent of FIFA regulations in relation to solidarity payments, that provide for compensation to be paid to clubs who have played a part in the development of players, has presented an opportunity for clubs to financially benefit by receiving a proportion of any compensation fees paid on transfers that span international boundaries.

Once you get your head around the complex calculation that is involved then it is apparent that a significant sum can be due, but despite regulations that state the buying club should notify all those involved in the training of the player, this does not always happen.

The Scout7 solidarity widget is designed to ensure that clubs receive a notification when a player that was registered to them during the qualifying period is transferred and that you should make a claim. This reminder is exceptionally valuable as it ensures that clubs don’t miss out because they aren’t aware the transfer has taken place or that the player was ever registered with the club at all. Clubs will no longer be solely reliant on the continuous service of staff to remember.

Claims can be made up to 2 years from the transaction occurring and I would estimate that a significant amount of money for the benefit of our clubs remains, awaiting collection.

Our exercise led us to identify money that was due to us, but we were out of time with our claim, but also payments we had not claimed. It was this experience that led us to work with Scout7 to use their existing player database and develop the widget.

I would recommend this to any clubs so as to ensure you collect what is rightly due to you without having to add to the ever increasing administration burden, once you have your players logged on the system.

How the Widget Works The Solidarity Payment Widget can automatically detect the players listed in Scout7’s ProScout7 database who are recorded as being with the club from 12-23 and populate them in the widget.

Alternatively the club can upload their own internal list of players and then map each player to the online records.

Once all the players have been successfully uploaded to the widget, a red flag will automatically appear against each player where a solidarity payment is owed.

All cross-border transfers older than two years are displayed by a black flag, indicating that payments can no longer be claimed.

For all players with a red flag, the club Administrator can manage the status of each payment within each player’s own personal record.

They can do this by: • Amending the player’s historical record to indicate whether their status was amateur or professional on a season-by-season basis.

• Adding dates to indicate when the player joined and left the club.

• Add private internal notes to the record.

• Amend the colour of the flag to change the status of the outstanding payment.

To find out more about the Solidarity Payment widget, please contact the Scout7 team at info@scout7.com

Leeds were entitled to a payment when Scott Carson moved to Bursaspor in 2011

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The Scout Profile: Kevin Reeves Wigan Athletic Chief Scout How did you first get involv involved in scouting and player recruitment?

I was Assistant Manager to Brian Flynn Fly at Wrexham for thirteen years before we both moved to Swansea City in 2002. During that entire ent time we didn’t have a Chief Scout, so as well as coaching we were also heavily involved in the player recruitment side of things, so I guess I have been involved in scouting players since 1989.

198 After leaving Swansea I had a couple of opportunities to continue coaching and had a few offers at League One and League Two level, level but because I enjoyed the scouting side of things I decided that tha at I wanted to take the route of beco becoming a Chief Scout.

My first scouting position was at Portsmouth Ports working for Stuart Morgan, who I had played with at Bournemouth, where I worked as a part-time pa scout. Then a year later I was offered the position of Chief Scout at Stoke City by John Rudge, Ru which I accepted and that was my first appointment in that role.

What is your current role in scouting and what does that entail?

I am currently the Chief Scout at Wigan Wiga Athletic and my role is split into covering two key aspects of the club: player recruitment and a opposition assessment. In addition to the games I cover scouts working underneath me who are involved in the recruitment myself, I have three scout of players and four fou who work solely on producing opposition scouting reports.

Part of o my role is handling their activity week-to-week during the seas season, so they cover the right games both at the weekend and midweek. midw

S Since you started scouting, are there any p players you have helped recruit that you are particularly proud of and if so, why?

Down the years there have been a number of players I have brought in that I am proud of, even from those early days at Wrexham.

However if I was to pick one out, it would have to be Leon Britton for Swansea City ten years ago.

It was the year when we were right down at the bottom of the old third division, fighting for our lives to stay in the Football League, and it came down to the final day of the season against Hull City when we finally secured our League status.

Before Christmas I can remember watching Leon playing for West Ham Reserves against Chelsea Reserves at Aldershot’s ground, then soon after we brought him in on loan together with another West Ham player, Izzy Iriekpen.

He played a key role in our survival that year, and then to see him go on to play for the club at every level through to the Premier League fills me with an awful lot of pride.

Of course he has had to work incredibly hard and develop to get to that level, but it is a great story. He is a fantastic guy with a great attitude and the club is perfect for him - as the way they play their football suits his style of play.

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What is the best part of being a Premier League Chief Scout?

To be a Chief Scout, as with anything in life you need to work hard, be adaptable and have the ability to think on your feet. You also have to be comfortable with constant travelling – if you don’t like driving then it isn’t the right profession for you!

I really enjoy the practical aspects of the job, but the most satisfying thing is when one of your signings goes into the first team, performs well and develops. When a young player like Victor Moses comes in from the Football League and then moves on to a club like Chelsea it gives everyone tremendous satisfaction.

In many ways I am in a fortunate position in that I work for a Manager in Roberto Martinez who plays the game the right way, in a way I enjoyed playing during my own career under Managers like John Bond at Manchester City.

I also know that Roberto, his Assistant Graeme Jones and the rest of the staff will get the absolute maximum out of any player I help bring in, which is a massive bonus.

If there was anything you could change that would make things easier for you in your role as a scout what would it be?

In the past it would sometimes be difficult to take in enough games on overseas trips to continents such as South America, but I must say that this has improved significantly in recent years.

Today I could go a country like Argentina and be able to watch sixteen different teams, at various different age levels, during one week, and the same goes for the vast majority of countries around the world.

I like the set-up we have at Wigan. We know our budgets, we are aware that we may not have the biggest budget compared to other teams in our league, but we use what we can afford to search and recruit the best players we can for our club.

Again I am lucky in that a lot of players we monitor are interested in coming to us because they are keen to work with our Manager, which makes my job easier in terms of recruitment.

Since you started scouting, do you feel you have had to adapt in your role as the industry has evolved?

Definitely. There are certain things that will never change, you still need to work hard and you still need to have a good team of scouts who possess a good eye for a player.

That side of scouting will never change and it is as important now as it was when I was working at Wrexham twenty years ago.

But considering the advances in other areas, especially in sports science and physical performance information, you need to adapt to benefit from all the information that is available to you. It may not be the primary information used in the final decision making, but it can offer important information to back-up and support any decision you make.

Kevin Reeves - Career History

A

s a striker, Kevin Reeves scored over 100 league goals in a 10 year professional career which was curtailed prematurely by injury at the age of just 26.

He played for four clubs, starting out as an apprentice at AFC Bournemouth before joining Norwich City, where he scored 42 goals in 133 games in all competitions.

During his time at Carrow Road he won the first of two senior England Caps, making his debut in a European Championships qualifier against Bulgaria at Wembley in 1979.

In the spring of 1980 he was bought by Manchester City Manager Malcolm Allison for a fee in excess of £1 million, becoming the first player to leave Norwich for a sevenfigure fee.

In his first full season at City he was his side’s leading goalscorer, netting 17 times in 54 games which included a penalty in the 1981 FA Cup Final replay against Tottenham Hotspur.

In the summer of 1983 he moved to his final club Burnley, where following a prolific first six months in front of goal, scoring in 15 goals in 28 games, he unfortunately picked up a hip injury in an FA Cup tie which resulted in his retirement the following summer.

He initially stayed at Turf Moor as a youth coach, before following Manager John Bond to Birmingham City a couple of years later.

In 1989 he became his former Burnley teammate Brian Flynn’s Assistant Manager at Wrexham, where he began his first foray into scouting which has led him down a path to becoming a Chief Scout at three different clubs, Stoke City, Swansea City and now Wigan Athletic, who he joined in the summer of 2009.

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Botafogo return to Europe to defend Spax Cup title F

or the second year in succession, Scout7 can confirm that it will be supporting the Spax Cup, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2013.

The Under 19 club competition, which was first staged in 1974, is organised each year by the German amateur club TUS Ennepetal and takes place at the 8,000 seat Bremenstadion in the city, which is located near Dortmund.

The competition is taking place from 18-20th May. As well as the host club, the tournament features both leading German clubs and major teams from overseas.

This year’s edition will see Borussia Dortmund, FC Schalke 04 and 1. FC Köln take part, with FC Twente (Netherlands), Beşiktaş Jimnastik Kulübü (Turkey), Olympiakos (Greece) and reigning champions Botafogo (Brazil)

completing the eight team line-up.

In addition to competing in Ennepetal, Botafogo will also be taking part in the annual FIFA Blue Stars Cup in Zurich earlier in the same month as part of an extensive tour of Europe.

As part of Scout7’s involvement at the Spax Cup, company staff will be in attendance on all three days, supplying on-site scouts with a tournament notebook and information on participating players, using the information available in the ProScout7 database.

The database includes extensive coverage of youth football in Germany, including the A-Jugend, B-Jugend and C-Jugend Bundesliga regional divisions, which are the Under 19, Under 17 and Under 15 domestic leagues respectively.

Full recorded match videos for all of the games taking place will be also available to clubs via

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the ProScout7 portal after the event and as the competition is taking place, each game will be streamed live on the competition’s official website.

After successfully supporting the event last year, Scout7 Deutschland’s Andreas Merkle explains why the company is continuing to partner with the tournament.

“With its history and heritage, the Spax Cup is one of the most prestigious Under 19 club tournaments in Germany,” explains Merkle, who himself is a former German youth international at both Under 21 and Under 19 level.

“The tournament is well supported by the local community and each year, tens of thousands of people turn out to watch emerging players from some of the world’s leading Academies take part.

“These players will be following in the footsteps

of many illustrious players such as Jürgen Klinsmann, Dennis Bergkamp and Fernando Torres, who have all played there in the past.

“The key to the success of the competition is the quality of the teams that take part and in 2013 you will find that some of the strongest teams in Europe will be sending youth teams to compete.

“Added to that, for the past eleven years there has been at least one South American club involved, which is something rarely seen at independently run tournaments.

“This all means that from a club’s perspective, the Spax Cup is one of the most important youth club competitions on the scouting calendar.

“We look forward to seeing many of our client clubs at the Bremenstadion in May.” The format of the tournament comprises of two groups of four playing each other in a roundrobin, with matches split into two twenty-five minute halves.

Group matches are played over the opening two days, with the semi-finals and subsequent final being played on day three.

Details of the scouting accreditation procedure will be distributed in the weeks leading up to the tournament.

For further information, please visit the official SPAX Cup website at www.u19tournament. com or email info@tus-ennepetal.de.

Spax Cup 2013 Schedule Group A 18th May: 14.00 Botafogo vs Borussia Dortmund 18th May: 16.00 Besiktas Jimnastik vs 1. FC Köln 19th May: 10.30 1. FC Köln vs Borussia Dortmund 19th May: 11.30 Botafogo vs Besiktas Jimnastik 19th May: 15.00 Besiktas Jimnastik vs Borussia Dortmund 19th May: 16:00 Botafogo vs 1. FC Köln

Group B 18th May: 15.00 Olympiakos vs TuS Ennepetal 18th May: 17.00 FC Twente vs FC Schalke 04 19th May: 12.30 FC Schalke 04 vs TuS Ennepetal 19th May: 13.30 Olympiakos vs FC Twente 19th May: 17.00 FC Twente vs TuS Ennepetal 19th May: 18.00 Olympiakos vs FC Schalke 04

Knock-Out Stages 20th May: 09.30 Semi Final 1 (1st Group A vs 2nd Group B) 20th May: 10.35 Semi Final 2 (1st Group B vs 2nd Group A) 20th May: 11.40 7/8 Place Game (4th Group A vs 4th Group B) 20th May: 12.45 5/6 Place Game (3rd Group A vs 3rd Group B) 20th May: 13.50 3/4 Place Game 20th May: 15.00 Final

The 2012 Spax Cup featured Max Meyer, who has gone on to play in the UEFA Champions League for FC Schalke 04 this year

25 PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL SOLUTIONS

Elite Players’ Perceptions of Football Playing Surfaces

By Paul Osei-Owusu Loughborough University

T

he Sports Technology Institute at Loughborough University over the past decade has built extensive knowledge in the area of elite athlete perception testing, having interviewed and published work on players from a multitude of sports such as Golf, Hockey, Rugby, Football, Cricket and Martial Arts.

The methodology for athlete testing has been refined over the years and yet is very dependent upon the level and sports in which the athletes participate in that are under scrutiny.

This article summarises the outcome of an 18 month study commissioned by FIFA and supported by FIFPro aimed at determining elite players’ perceptions of football playing surfaces.

The article outlines the preliminary findings, along with simplified statistical analysis.

A comprehensive report, along with peerreviewed academic papers will be generated later this year, which will provide a more indepth presentation of the findings.

Introduction Football is a global sport with over 112,000 registered elite players worldwide. Each elite player plays for a club within the territory of one of the 209 Fédération Internationale de Football

Association (FIFA) member associations which represent football within their respective territory. Given the global distribution of member associations, playing surface conditions can vary substantially between associations, due in part, to factors such as climate.

As a consequence, for the 2004/2005 season, the laws of the game were modified to sanction the use of both natural grass and football turf, (‘football turf’ also refers to 3rd generation artificial or synthetic pitches). The first wave of countries/leagues to introduce football turf encountered resistance.

However, as football turf’s popularity has increased, be it for genuine climate difficulties or for economic benefits, more and more countries/leagues are using it.

Given the variety of the different playing surfaces include natural grass, reinforced natural turf, football turf and hard surfaces (for example, clay, sand, gravel and wood) that the players come in contact with, it was considered essential by FIFA with the support of FIFPro to gain an understanding of how all these surfaces influences a players training and match day play.

Aim of Study To develop a comprehensive understanding

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of elite football players’ perceptions of the influence of the playing surface on the game of football.

Objectives of Study •To identify players’ requirements for a good quality playing surface.

•To ascertain issues of importance to players in assessing the quality and suitability of playing surfaces.

•To relate pitch characteristics to the way in which the game is played.

•To relate players’ perceptions with current and previous playing experience, physical attributes, playing positions, playing style and psychological attributes.

•To identify areas for future research and investigation on playing surfaces.

Methodology The study was completed in two phases; Phase 1 captured elite level players’ perceptions on playing surfaces using an open-ended, unstructured interview process. This approach provided detailed information and structured anecdotal evidence from the players interviewed and was chosen as it allowed the players to

lead the discussion, focussing on topics and issues that mattered to them. These topics and issues were then used to formulate a structured questionnaire which was spread across the 209 Member Associations of FIFA during Phase 2 of the study.

Phase 1: Qualitative Player Interviews The subjective data captured in Phase 1 was collected from players at eight clubs competing in the highest tier of the French and Dutch leagues, who had played league fixtures on both natural grass and football turf, during the second half of the 2010/2011 season.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted with players, coaches, medics and physiotherapists using open and non-leading questions.

Interviews were carried out individually and in small groups, referred to as focus groups.

In total, 32 focus groups were conducted during the data collection stage of Phase 1. This gave a total of 124 participants, consisting of 103 elite footballers and 21 staff.

A method based on the grounded theory approach was used to structure the raw qualitative data collected; the process revealed mutually exclusive dimensions (Figure 1) encompassing the players’ perceptions of football surfaces.

Figure 1 shows a relationship map of the major themes that players mentioned during the entire interview process.

Phase 2: Quantitative Online Questionnaire The major themes from Phase 1 (Figure 1) were then used to construct a questionnaire to reach a wide range of elite level players. From the FIFA Big Count in 2006, there were 112,000 registered elite players across the six FIFA confederations.

Based on this figure, a target sample size from each confederation was calculated that would allow analysis of the results to be carried out with an acceptable level of confidence. A

Figure 2: Breakdown of Obtained Statistics

Figure 1: Relationship Map of Themes selection strategy was then used to identify target countries and clubs to participate in the study.

Once questionnaire data had been collected it was combined with Scout7 data to form a central database. Scout7 provided data on each player’s football background, such as weight, height, nationality, clubs played for, number of appearances in domestic and international fixtures and playing position.

This data allowed additional statistical analysis to be conducted. Once the central database had been collated, the questionnaire data was subjected to a data cleaning process to ensure the data allowed meaningful conclusions to be drawn. All data was then analysed using the statistical analysis software ‘R’.

Preliminary Results A total of 1,129 players playing in 44 countries completed the questionnaire, of which 111 were female and 1,018 were male (see Figure 2 and Figure ‎3 for breakdown numbers for the

questionnaire and world map of all players that completed the questionnaire).

The data was analysed based on age, weight, confederation, height, gender and surface experience.

Statistical analysis of all headline questions (filtering questions) in the questionnaire produced the following responses from the players; • 91% of players think surface type or condition can increase injury.

• 64% of players have experienced an injury believed to be caused by the surface.

• 68% of all players think they would change their style of play to suit a particular surface.

• 67% of these players (the 68% of players above) would change style of play on football turf compared to a natural turf.

Continuted on page 28, column 1

Figure 3: Worldwide distribution of players that completed the questionnaire

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• 41% of all players have used football turf for a competitive home match within the last five years.

• 87% of players choose their footwear based on the surface they are playing on.

• 94% of players think the ball behaves differently on different playing surfaces.

In addition, a series of sentiments which were expressed by elite players during the initial qualitative study (Phase 1), were used to construct a number of questions in the questionnaire. The results of these are presented in Figure 4.

Conclusion The preliminary findings are: • Players’ surface experience varies by global region.

• Footwear choice varies with surface and also between playing positions and age.

• Players perceive pitch properties to be more variable on ‘football turf’ surfaces compared to natural turf.

Figure 4: Player Opinion Questions

• Players perceive the injury risk to be higher on football turf pitches than on natural grass, although the reported injuries are associated to soreness and fatigue, rather than muscular tears or fractures.

• Study indicates differences of opinion according to gender, age, global region and surface experience. Analysis of these and other factors are on-going.

on playing surfaces; players and coaches, to fully understand if current views on the different playing surfaces are based on perception or factual data; and manufacturers, to use the data and views expressed by the players to develop surfaces that will be of considerable benefit to all concerned.

• Styles of play are seen as being changeable on different surfaces and a level of adaptation is required.

It is hoped that once full analysis of the study is completed the findings will be of use to FIFA, to aid future research and investigation

For further information on the study, please contact Dr Jon Roberts via email: J.R.Roberts@lboro.ac.uk.

• 59% of players have had no experience of playing on football turf.

28 PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL SOLUTIONS

advanced player data management within the modern training ground operation player administration squad management performance assessment coaching sports science medical Scout7 Training Ground offers professional football clubs an evolutionary database solution to centrally manage internal player data across all its training ground departments, encompassing key performance, physiological and recruitment information.

All data recorded contributes to each player’s own personal player record and is stored in a secure, online system, which allows all information to be accessed remotely by authorised club staff, no matter whether they’re working from the training ground, the stadium, at home or whilst travelling.

Scout7 Training Ground is a flexible, multi-user solution, tailored to meet the budget and specific requirements of individual clubs, providing a long-term strategic application for the management of player data for players from the youngest age groups, right through to the first team professionals.

For more information please contact Jack Dodd.

Tel: 0844 568 5770 Email: jack@scout7.com

Scout7 Profile: Stephan Hanke European Sales Manager Prior to working for Scout7, what was your involvement in professional football?

Before I joined Scout7 in the autumn of 2007, I spent 17 years a professional player.

As a result of this experience, I had the opportunity to look behind the scenes at many different professional Clubs and during this time I also studied Sports Management as I prepared for my post-playing career.

As a player, what kind of player were you?

I was generally a defensive player and also a 100% team player. Because of my physical strength I was always putting my body on the line for the team.

My natural desire is always to take responsibility within a team, which I think reflected the type of player I was.

Are there any special achievements or key moments from your playing career which stand out for you?

For sure there were a few key moments, both positive and negative, but as I am a positive person I want to underline two promotions. The first was in 1995 with FC St.Pauli to the 1.Bundesliga, and the second was in 2003 with Jahn Regensburg to the 2.Bundesliga.

When I was 20 I was also part of the Bayer Leverkusen squad that won the 1993 DFB-Cup. That was a big moment as well.

If you were given the power to change anything in modern football, what would you change?

I would ensure that every Club in the world had to work with Scout7!

What does your role at Scout7 entail?

As European Sales Manager I take a lead in all core business sales and account management activities to ensure my team delivers targets within a dynamic and evolving environment.

Taking a daily ‘hands-on’ role, I am responsible for achieving team and individual targets and objectives.

What is the best thing about working at Scout7?

It is very enjoyable for me is to be a part of a professional and dedicated team, that through its innovation supports and helps people in the football industry.

Do you have any goals or objectives that you want to achieve at Scout7 in 2013?

To provide the best possible service for our customers and to improve and develop our solutions to meet their needs.

Another goal is to break into new Markets, including East Asia and the Far East.

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PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL SOLUTIONS