Dortmund & London/Chicago, 07 September 2021 – Today, Stats Perform, the sports tech leader in data and AI, announced an agreement with Borussia Dortmund which will see the Bundesliga club continue to use Stats Perform’s ISF platform to support the management of its club-wide scouting and recruitment operation for the next two years.
For over a decade, Dortmund has built a global reputation for the early identification and recruitment of some of the world’s leading young prospects, as well as providing a pathway to integrate emerging players into their first-team squad.
Now under the leadership of the club’s Head of Scouting, Markus Pilawa, Dortmund’s recruitment team, working across both first team and academy operations, will use the ISF platform to monitor leading recruitment markets globally on a day-to-day basis, as well as centrally manage all of its internal scouting intelligence on prospects.
Incorporating detailed career records for over 730,000 active players engaged in professional football worldwide, the ISF also publishes core match data for over 100,000 matches played around the world each year and houses video from key competitions. In Germany, biographical player data and line-up information is available in ISF for the top four tiers of men’s club football, in addition to six regional youth leagues going down to under 17 level.
Alongside the global database, Dortmund has had their own customised player assessment and match report templates built into their ISF system, allowing their scouting staff to subjectively assess players each week against key criteria. Within ISF, this private scouting data can be interrogated alongside each player’s objective career data, to assist with the identification of key prospects across each academy age group, the reserve team and the first-team squad.
After agreeing an extension to their ISF agreement, Borussia Dortmund’s Markus Pilawa said: “We have been working with the Stats Perform team for a long time, and during this time the ISF has been a helpful tool. The software maps various steps in our recruitment process that we have developed here in recent years. With the renewed cooperation, we look forward to a continued trustful collaboration.”
Stephan Hanke, Vice President of Sales in Europe at Stats Perform, added: “Our relationship with Borussia Dortmund’s scouting department goes back over fifteen years and I am absolutely thrilled that we will be continuing to work together for at least another two years. Stats Perform is committed to helping clubs manage strategically for the long-term and by providing Dortmund with a platform which enables them to manage both its academy and first-team scouting activity in parallel throughout the season, I believe we can help streamline key processes and provide greater clarity to major recruitment decisions, at all levels of the club.”