Nairobi — The use of artificial intelligence has been hailed as a potential game changer in Kenyan football as it will make it easy to identify budding talents from the remotest parts of the country.
Head of marketing at Safaricom, Nozizwe Vundla Awuor, said the technology will resolve the biggest headache many football teams have been encountering in terms of scouting.
“You know…we may not be able to bring scouts from Spain, from England or whatever to Bondo but what I can take there is an AI vest so that that kid can monitor their performance and feed all these stats to the scout so they know that there is this amazing player in Bondo,” Awuor said.
Awuor furthermore said AI can be a useful tool for football clubs in the local tier who can better improve their players by identifying their strengths and weaknesses and modeling their coaching in line with these needs.
“The focus right now is on unearthing that talent (using AI). Of course the question is whether we can use that tech at the Kenya Premier League level…yes we can. But first, let us find that talent,” she said.
This year’s edition of the Chapa Dimba Football Tournament will feature players wearing AI vests to gather important data about their performances and enhance scouting.
“It will give us distance stats including the top speed, distance per minute, acceleration, deceleration, and heat maps. At Safaricom, we will have that data and share it with different bodies, such as the FKF (Football Kenya Federation), the international coaches and players well,” Awuor said.
She added: “I think…the first thing is that it allow players at the grassroots to have a digital profile…sort of like their football CV.”
The tournament, which is resuming this year after a three-year hiatus, kicked off early last month in the Western region, drawing approximately 441 teams from Kakamega, Busia, Vihiga and Bungoma counties.