Stats Entertainment: The Legal and Regulatory Issues Arising from the Data Analytics Movement in Association Football. Part One: The Development of Data Analytics and Property Rights in Data

Abstract

Data analytics has become a critical part of professional football.  It brings with it a number of challenging legal questions, brought into sharper focus by the reported ‘Project Red Card’ legal action, in which the legality of the systematised use of player performance data has been called into question.  Focussing on the position in English law, this two part article takes a holistic approach to assessing the legal issues presented by the data analytics movement.Part One sets out contextual information on the development of data analytics in football, before examining whether the data produced in football are capable of ownership, either in raw format or after manipulation, taking into account the nature of property and intangible assets, relevant intellectual property laws, and non-IP protections. Part Two of this article will go on to consider the position in respect of data protection law (including FIFA’s Data Protection Regulations). Finally, some broader legal issues are considered, including competition law and the regulation of artificial intelligence.The conclusions of Part One and Part Two together are that the intellectual property rights position is broadly positive for data analysts, with legal protections capable of application in many circumstances.  However, data protection law presents a more complicated problem, with a number of challenging compliance obligations for the analytics community, albeit with scope to exploit player performance data where those obligations are met.