Building a Scouting Strategy in Africa

The sale of players is a crucial revenue stream for football clubs, and effective talent identification, scouting, and recruitment can determine a club’s financial success.

A major trend in modern football is a focus on younger players, as their value peaks in their mid-twenties. Every professional club can benefit from a strong youth recruitment strategy.

Eyeball, a digital scouting platform, sees opportunities in emerging markets like Africa. While the continent offers vast talent, challenges such as its size, lack of structure, and limited information availability make scouting difficult. Traditionally, European clubs partnered with African academies, but this model has limitations.

Eyeball leverages technology to map and partner with over 120 African academies, investing in digital infrastructure to enable video scouting. The platform provides high-quality match footage, detailed player data, and academy contacts, allowing clubs to scout African talent as easily as in any other market.

However, recruitment success requires more than just access to video. Clubs must create appealing development pathways to attract young talents. African players and their advisors increasingly evaluate clubs based on their ability to offer first-team opportunities and structured career progression.

Successful development clubs provide reserve teams or partner clubs to ensure continuous player growth.

Three Scouting Strategies in Africa:

1. Opportunistic – Clubs react to player pitches from agents with limited video scouting, making quick decisions with little control over the process. Success depends largely on luck
2. Monitor and Wait – Clubs track top academies via video scouting, build "shadow teams" of potential recruits, and establish relationships with key figures. They monitor players long before signing them, reducing risk and cost. Multiple Premier League and Bundesliga clubs such as Aston Villa and Borussia Dortmund have recently implement this strategy.
3. Buy, Develop, and Sell – The most recommended strategy, where clubs actively scout and sign African players for low fees, develop them, provide first-team opportunities, and sell them for a profit. This strategy is used by DC United, AS Monaco, Slavia Prague, and Scandinavian clubs.

Need Help? Next Steps?

Contact Eyeball and set up a meeting with Eyeball’s Head of Africa and Head of Football Strategy, who will be able to guide you to which countries in Africa you should focus on, which academies make the most sense to develop a strong relationship with, all depending on your budget, setup and goals. Of course, if you are not currently familiar with the Eyeball platform, you can have an in-depth demo of the platform and even a free trial period if required.

Website – https://www.eyeball.club/

Contact Email - benjamin@eyeball.club