The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) will launch a new event designed to connect the country’s emerging analytical talent with the football industry to collaboratively enhance sporting performance.

In conjunction with Technological University Dublin, the FAI Datathon will invite performance analysts, PhD, undergraduates and master’s researchers, data scientists, machine learning engineers and sports technology professionals to tackle a real football problem using real football data. No coding experience required.

APPLY AS AN INDIVIDUAL OR AS A TEAM BY 12:00 ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 26TH

The Datathon will provide a platform for analytical talent, from all backgrounds, looking to showcase their skills and help solve an emerging football question. The event will promote a collaborative, cross-functional problem-solving environment and challenge participants to creatively solve a youth football challenge using a provided data set over a 48hr window. The challenge itself will be revealed as the opening to the event. 

The two-day event will begin at 10:00 on Thursday, October 29^th when the challenge is revealed. Teams will work at their own pace with mentors available online to guide and support the teams. Friday, October 30^th is an in-person session at TU Dublin’s campus in Grangegorman. Day two will focus on team mentoring, presentation development and delivering a detailed final solution. 

Mentorship will be provided by national associations including the Irish football association, the football association of Ireland, the US soccer federation, the Dutch football association, the Irish rugby football union, the rugby football union (England), clubs including Atlético Madrid, Como 1907, Brentford FC, Arsenal FC, Atletico Mineiro, Athletico Paranaense, Chicago Fire, São Paulo FC, Hamburger SV, BK Häcken,  as well as the international football institute in Munich, UK universities, Irish universities, Kitman Labs, STATSports and Orreco. Entry is free and teams should be made up of three to five people. Individual applicants will be placed into a team with places confirmed on Wednesday, October 28^th. 

FAI Head of Performance Support Jason Cowman said: “The importance of performance support in football is as great as it’s ever been. And data plays a significant role in it. But it is vital that we collect the right data and use it in the correct way to maximise performance for our individual players and our teams. This opportunity will help uncover which of all the contested moments in competitive matches make a real difference to performance outputs.”

“The Datathon challenge being set is one that will undoubtedly intrigue the best analytical talent around the country, while there is also the opportunity to network with industry professionals, showcase talents and the potential to bring the solution to life in the real world of football analytics following the event.”

The winning teams will receive prizes and have an opportunity to continue working on the project with the support of the FAI team.

The application window for FAI Datathon will remain open until 12:00 on Monday, October 26th

CLICK HERE TO APPLY AS AN INDIVIDUAL

CLICK HERE TO APPLY AS A TEAM

FAI Datathon
Thursday, October 29th | Online
Friday, October, 30th | In-person