The company that seeks to make 'impossible' African scouting mission a goldmine for football clubs

Eyeball.Club are wanting to expand their offering on the data they provide

Sadio Mane has been one of African football’s biggest success stories over the past decade (GETTY IMAGES)

The Bottom Line returns this week after a brief hiatus.

After the drudgery that is the international break the Premier League burst back into life, followed by an electric Champions League programme of fixtures.

But while the domestic game may have taken a back seat in November there was plenty to chew over when it came to what was going on behind the scenes, with the revised associated party transaction (APT) rules being passed at a Premier League shareholders meeting, as well as the reveal that English football’s top flight would bring in £12.25bn in broadcast and commercial income between 2025 and 2028.

However, this week’s newsletter has a different focus and shines a light on one of the areas that major clubs are looking to get ahead when it comes to unearthing the next superstar that can transform their fortunes.

The job of the scout has existed in the game for generations. Scouring the length and breadth of the country to all corners of the globe, spotting talent is a talent in itself, and clubs have long benefited enormously from investing in it appropriately.

But as the game and technology evolves, so too has the way players are scouted, with software already having long been in use that can provide clubs with huge amounts of data on young players and on potential transfer targets, thus removing some of the elements of risk involved in signing players.

But how can you unearth gems in parts of the globe where they might fall through the cracks? Well, it turns out there is a plan for that too.