West Ham United has announced a new collaboration with Crayon and Amazon Web Services (AWS), which sees them team up to develop an AI-powered football scouting platform.
This innovative scouting solution is set to transform the way football talent is identified, analysed and recruited, revolutionising modern day scouting within the sport.
West Ham United, famed for its status as the ‘Academy of Football’, has a long-standing reputation of being a front-runner in talent development.
This collaboration ensures the Premier League side will stay at the forefront of innovation within the sport as they become the first to implement a generative AI-powered end-to-end scouting tool, to support the recruitment of future world-class talent for its First Team and Academy.
The platform will empower scouts with best-in-class data, providing an extra layer of knowledge to further allow them to make evidence-led decisions on talent identification and recruitment, alongside traditional scouting practices.
The London club is working with Crayon, an expert in data and AI solutions, and cloud computing provider, AWS, to develop the platform. The platform will integrate AI, machine learning (ML) and generative AI capabilities using Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock.
This will supply West Ham United with the ability to gather, analyse, benchmark and compare player data from across the world to make data-backed recruitment and talent identification decisions.
The club will also have support from Crayon’s Center of Excellence, and the AWS Generative AI Innovation Center, which helps organisations to successfully build and implement generative AI solutions.
“The platform we are developing using AI and machine learning builds comprehensive models to evaluate players across multiple dimensions – performance, playing style, team dynamics, age, experience and financial fit – ensuring recruitment aligns with team goals,” said Maximilian Hahn, Head of Technical Recruitment & Analysis at West Ham United.
“By automating and streamlining these processes, we can analyse vast datasets across markets and efficiently identify top talent, making player selection more strategic, consistent and future-focused.”
Nathan Thompson, Executive Director at West Ham United, added: “This collaboration marks a significant milestone for West Ham United, as we put ourselves at the forefront of innovation by working alongside AWS and Crayon, both industry global leaders in their respective fields.
“As a club, to have an AI-powered talent identification platform which is solely tailored to the needs of our scouting and recruitment team, will ensure we continue our proud heritage of attracting exciting talent to London Stadium.
“West Ham United are proud to be bold and forward thinking in our approach and this groundbreaking announcement highlights our commitment to utilising innovation on and off the pitch to achieve our goals.
“We are looking forward to beginning this collaboration alongside AWS and Crayon in what is a pioneering moment for the future of talent identification in the sport.”
Image: West Ham United
