By Debayan Mukherjee,
AIFF Media Team

NEW DELHI: There were European Champions Bayern Munich, English Premier League leaders Arsenal and heavyweights Chelsea, most accomplished Club in Europe Real Madrid… and Airtel I-League Clubs Pune FC and Bengaluru FC.

The occasion was the SAP Forum for Sports and Entertainment organised to increase awareness of SAP’s solutions around Player Scouting, Fan Engagement and Club Operations.

Airtel I-League CEO Sunando Dhar along with Head of Operations of Pune FC Chirag Tanna and CEO of Bengaluru FC Mustafa Ghouse were the representatives from Airtel I-League.

“One of the key technologies showcased by SAP is around Player Performance Management. It includes a chip technology, from Fraunhofer Institute embedded in the shin guards and Jersey of Players as well as inside the Football,” Anirban Dey, Managing Director of SAP India toldwww.the-aiff.com.

    

“These sensors push live position and acceleration data into SAP’s revolutionary in-memory platform SAP HANA, which in real-time calculates Player and Team performance. Some of the metrics shown are Average Ball Contact Time, Average Distance run, Burst Speed of Players, Ball Possession etc,” he added.

“SAP believes that this can also be leveraged by the I-League clubs,” urged Dey.

German Bundesliga outfit TSG 1899 Hoffenheim who have been using innovative software from SAP for many years, including the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application SAP® ERP for financial accounting, merchandising and E-commerce.

“Attending a Workshop like this gives you an idea of how technology in Football is used and at which level,” Sunando Dhar told www.the-aiff.com.

“The Workshop gave us a chance to assess where we stand presently and the potential of improving. We can take a lot back from the Conference. It was indeed a learning curve,” Dhar added.

Bangalore-based SAP India had invited Airtel I-League Clubs to be a part of this unique Seminar and Dhar is delighted to have been able to share the dais with the top Clubs of the World.

“This shows that Airtel I-League is certainly going in the right direction in terms of setting higher standards. I was overwhelmed when SAP India wanted the participation of Airtel I-League and am very thankful to them. Being on the same page with the top Clubs of the World was a matter of pride and is also learning experience,” Dhar stated.

Further he informed that there can be a Pilot Project in store with SAP and Airtel I-League.

“We are trying to work out a deal with SAP India on whether the technology can be brought to India, if not on the same scale but parts of it. A Pilot Project may be in the offing.”

Dey backed Dhar’s claims by adding that “SAP is exploring some live pilots at select Airtel I- League Clubs before making this main stream in India. Conversions are on-going on this regard.”

“SAP is focused on providing robust and scalable software solutions to all its customers globally. India Football can also benefit from this and we believe that SAP can be a strong partner in this regard and help elevate Indian football to the next level,” he added.

Ghouse of Bengaluru FC feels that it’s too early to think of adapting a similar advanced technology for I-League since there is still ambiguity over the commercial aspects of the Programme.

“The product is very advanced and innovative. It provides lot of information which you don’t get otherwise. But I am still not sure about its commercial aspects as it’s not quite clear. I am not sure we need something as advanced at the moment, but a toned down version will not be bad,” Ghouse said.

When queried about its feasibility in India, Dey asserted: “SAP will continue to work with the Airtel I-League Clubs to provide affordable solutions which will provide them high return value on their investments.”

Placing special sensors in shin guards, clothing and the ball itself, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim collects an enormous amount of actionable data from training, which is stored, processed and analysed by using SAP HANA.

Based on these analyses, trainers are developing new ways to improve the Players' game. Capability characteristics, such as acceleration, speed and ball contacts are calculated in real time for individual players or the whole team and visualised via an easily configurable user interface.

This data is used to personalise training to strategically target the strengths and weaknesses of each player and help create the most effective training plan possible.