Football Manager entertains multitudes of football fans around the globe, but real-life clubs find it useful, too. The game's player database has--and now will continue to officially be--used by professional clubs for scouting and providing knowledge of prospects.
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A deal has been signed between developer Sports Interactive and performance analysts Prozone, Expert Reviews reports. The game's database of over 550,000 real players will be incorporated into Prozone's Recruiter software, which is used by clubs to profile athletes.
The game's database adds contractual, positional and biographical information on players to Recruiter. Sports Interactive does send real-life scouts to watch players, working with roughly 1,300 of them to provide reports on players around the world.
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"The Sports Interactive database is a highly accurate and valuable resource that will further enhance the recruitment services that we provide," said Prozone head Thomas Schmider.
It has long been reported that some clubs made use of the game to profile or scout players, and now the studio is smartly getting involved itself.
"For years we've heard stories of real-life managers and scouts using our data to help with the recruitment process," said Sports Interactive studio director Miles Jacobson. "From now on, it's official. Real managers around the world will be finding and comparing players using data and a search system that will be very familiar to players of Football Manager."
Some of the largest clubs in the sport will access the database, including Premier League and La Liga teams. Football Manager 15 will be released this November, with the first features announcement set for October.
