The Football Thread 2019/20: Barcelona will have 2-8 till next season to avenge this embarrassment

[Hypes]

[Tomous]

David Ornstein on the The Athletic:

The English football season may be drawing to a close but behind the scenes, work is just getting started on a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit that could have major ramifications for the game.

It can be revealed by The Athletic that hundreds of players in the Premier League, EFL, National League and Scottish Premiership are taking legal action over the use of their performance and tracking data. If successful, the claim is expected to be worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

More than 400 current and former players have signed up to pursue gaming, betting and data-processing companies who utilise their personal statistics without consent or compensation.

They aim to recover lost income stretching back six years (as per the statute of limitations in UK law) and secure payouts potentially running into tens of thousands of pounds per person, depending on the level a player has competed at and the amount of exposure they have attained.

[Saint of Killers]

For a second I thought they were going to be dumb enough to sue the clubs for using the data (for footballing reasons) ...but I guess the clubs are involved, otherwise how would outside parties gain access to it.

[Corazon de Leon]

Very interested to know who in the Scottish league thinks they've been shafted by this. Must be at least a few OF players in there. And probably Lyndon Dykes.

[Igor]

Are they referring to data like 'this player has scored from outside the box in 3 of the last 7 games', or 'shot accuracy for player X is 68%'? If so, then I would have thought that either a) this data is collected by the respective leagues and licenced out to the various companies that use it, b) a third party collects the data but does so under licence from the leagues, or c) these companies are watching the game and collecting the data themselves.

If this is being done without consent or compensation then I can only assume it's the third one, but then I find it surprising that this is something that they can sue over. If I decided to watch every Premier League game next season and record every event in each game in an Excel spreadsheet so that I can then perform some analysis that I think will allow me to place better bets, and I then decide to sell the data I've collected to others, could I be sued under the same justification as this lawsuit? I'm finding it difficult to pin down who exactly owns that data; the players it concerns, the teams, the league for organising the event I'm tracking, or me for collecting the data for an event that is happening anyway.

Also, how can this possibly be defined as 'lost income'?

[Tomous]

Are they referring to data like 'this player has scored from outside the box in 3 of the last 7 games', or 'shot accuracy for player X is 68%'? If so, then I would have thought that either a) this data is collected by the respective leagues and licenced out to the various companies that use it, b) a third party collects the data but does so under licence from the leagues, or c) these companies are watching the game and collecting the data themselves.

If this is being done without consent or compensation then I can only assume it's the third one, but then I find it surprising that this is something that they can sue over. If I decided to watch every Premier League game next season and record every event in each game in an Excel spreadsheet so that I can then perform some analysis that I think will allow me to place better bets, and I then decide to sell the data I've collected to others, could I be sued under the same justification as this lawsuit? I'm finding it difficult to pin down who exactly owns that data; the players it concerns, the teams, the league for organising the event I'm tracking, or me for collecting the data for an event that is happening anyway.

Also, how can this possibly be defined as 'lost income'?

I'm not entirely sure to be honest. Only The Athletic are running with the story and it's behind a paywall. Lawyers seem to agree they have a case though.

[Tomous]

In other legal news, Bournemouth are considering legal action against Hawkeye

[Denster]

They should use City's lawyers. Their relegation will be cancelled immediately.

[Tomous]

RE: the legal claim, according to the Athletic podcast, every 25th of a second, tracking data is recorded by cameras for player location. Players haven't been asked for permission for this or had it put in their contracts, so that looks like the basis of the claim. And majority of players involved are EFL and National League.

[Pan]

My beloved Villa live to fight another season.

[Moggy]

In other legal news, Bournemouth are considering legal action against Hawkeye

[Preezy]

I mean, that mohawk was terrible, but I wouldn't take him to court over it.

[Dowbocop]

In other legal news, Bournemouth are considering legal action against Hawkeye

What frame is the ball played?

[Dowbocop]

RE: the legal claim, according to the Athletic podcast, every 25th of a second, tracking data is recorded by cameras for player location. Players haven't been asked for permission for this or had it put in their contracts, so that looks like the basis of the claim. And majority of players involved are EFL and National League.

So that technology I think they should use for offside not only exists, but is already being used by clubs

What sort of harm would be caused by this data? I can't see much to be honest.

[Tomous]

RE: the legal claim, according to the Athletic podcast, every 25th of a second, tracking data is recorded by cameras for player location. Players haven't been asked for permission for this or had it put in their contracts, so that looks like the basis of the claim. And majority of players involved are EFL and National League.

So that technology I think they should use for offside not only exists, but is already being used by clubs

What sort of harm would be caused by this data? I can't see much to be honest.

It's not about harm, it's about the data being sold without the players getting a share

[Jenuall]

RE: the legal claim, according to the Athletic podcast, every 25th of a second, tracking data is recorded by cameras for player location. Players haven't been asked for permission for this or had it put in their contracts, so that looks like the basis of the claim. And majority of players involved are EFL and National League.

So that technology I think they should use for offside not only exists, but is already being used by clubs

What sort of harm would be caused by this data? I can't see much to be honest.

I imagine the accuracy of this is insufficient for offside situations, it’s more for tracking movement stats and heat maps etc. which doesn’t really need to be quite so sure about exactly where two players are in relation to one another.

This does seem like a lot of fuss over nothing though

[Dowbocop]

RE: the legal claim, according to the Athletic podcast, every 25th of a second, tracking data is recorded by cameras for player location. Players haven't been asked for permission for this or had it put in their contracts, so that looks like the basis of the claim. And majority of players involved are EFL and National League.

So that technology I think they should use for offside not only exists, but is already being used by clubs

What sort of harm would be caused by this data? I can't see much to be honest.

It's not about harm, it's about the data being sold without the players getting a share

Ah, okay, I didn't know that was the crux of it.

[Tomous]

If Liverpool get Thiago for £30m-£35m, that is going to be an absolute bargain. Beautiful player to watch.

[Finiarél]

If Liverpool get Thiago for £30m-£35m, that is going to be an absolute bargain. Beautiful player to watch.

Yeah, There's lots of noise about this. Think he'd be great for us ( We've freed up 300k+ a week from Lovren, Lallana and Clyne leaving ) Gives us another option in midfield. We'll see. Wouldn't be shocked if we didn't sign anyone of note again.

Think if Gini doesn't sign a new contract this summer, He'll be off too.

[pjbetman]

RE: the legal claim, according to the Athletic podcast, every 25th of a second, tracking data is recorded by cameras for player location. Players haven't been asked for permission for this or had it put in their contracts, so that looks like the basis of the claim. And majority of players involved are EFL and National League.

So that technology I think they should use for offside not only exists, but is already being used by clubs

What sort of harm would be caused by this data? I can't see much to be honest.

I wonder if it uses the data on the fly or just records it for later?