Liverpool Echo’s Everton reporter Chris Beesley interviewed Comparisonator CEO Tarkan Batgün about Everton manager David Moyes’ admission regarding the use of artificial intelligence in football. Batgün believes that, especially in transfer recruitment, AI has already revolutionised football scouting.
Artificial Intelligence or A.I. is encroaching on an increasing number of aspects of our lives, but how could it be used to help Everton?
Ahead of the pre-match press conference to preview his side’s 3–0 win over Nottingham Forest earlier this month, Blues boss David Moyes was asked about the subject. Simon Crabtree of Premier League Productions pointed out that the England national team are now supposedly using A.I. to give them increased data about penalty taking at their fingertips that previously would have taken several days to collate.
“A.I. can reveal risks that the eye cannot see; recruitment departments are expected to justify decisions with evidence rather than guesswork.“
“Today, football has become too fast, too global and too expensive to rely on intuition alone. What has changed is this: Clubs now have access to data from hundreds of leagues; performance can be measured across environments; A.I. can reveal risks that the eye cannot see; recruitment departments are expected to justify decisions with evidence rather than guesswork.”
“Is it going to tell me they put it to the right-hand side or the left-hand side? On the day, you could change your mind, you could do that.
“I don’t know what A.I. could tell me more than me watching somebody taking 20 or 30 penalties. I don’t know if it completely works, but maybe somebody knows more than I do – I’m sure they do.”
With the January transfer window poised to open, transfer recruitment is one of the main areas where A.I.’s advocates believe it can be deployed and using data relationship in scouting has revolutionised football scouting in recent years and one of the pioneers in the field has been Comparisonator CEO Tarkan Batgun, who has also developed A.I. systems to help in player recruitment. A dual Australian-Turkish citizen, he devised the concept of the ‘scouting laboratory’ while serving as director of scouting at Bursaspor, and brings more than 20 years of analytical expertise and experience within the global football industry.
Batgun believes that scouting has changed over the last five years from being mostly opinion-based and he told the ECHO:
“In the past, a scout watched 90 minutes, wrote a report, and the decision relied heavily on individual interpretation.”
Click here to read the full interview: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/everton-transfers-david-moyes-ai-33109771
