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One language for football’s match data
How FIFA built one data ecosystem for its tournaments, raising the events captured from about 2,500 to around 15,000 per match by Qatar 2022.
Client
FIFA
Sector
Sport
Services
Data strategy, data standards, match analysis
Delivered
Data standard, collection model, distribution platform
The outcome
15,000
events per match
Events captured per match rose from 2,000-2,500 to around 15,000 by Qatar 2022.
1
football language
One set of definitions for every on-pitch event launched in late 2021.
11
new metrics at Qatar 2022
The FIFA Training Centre turned the data into new metrics for coaches.
The Challenge
Football data was collected by many providers, each with its own definitions. A pass, a press or a line break could mean different things depending on who coded the match, which made it hard to compare teams, coach from the data or sell it with confidence. In 2015 the IFAB asked FIFA to develop a global standard for player tracking. FIFA needed one approach that worked at every tournament it ran.
WHY IT MATTERS: INDUSTRY DATA
>
9
m
Spatial data points
Captured per game
15
k
Events per match
Up from 2,000–2,500
11
New metrics
Introduced at Qatar 2022
What we did
1
Set one football language
We helped define the FIFA Football Language, one set of definitions for every event on the pitch, launched in late 2021 after more than two years of work.
2
Built the collection model
In-stadium ‘speakers’ and ‘writers’ captured events live, while optical tracking followed every player to the nearest centimetre.
3
Put the data to work
A distribution platform sent the data to teams, media and organisers and the FIFA Training Centre turned it into new metrics for coaches.
What happened next
At the 2026 World Cup, 16 tracking cameras per stadium generated more than 150 million tracking data points per match and every team had access to Football AI Pro, an AI assistant built on FIFA’s data.
