Safeguard Your Team’s Performance Culture: What You Need to Know About FIFPRO/FIFA’s Charter of Player Data Rights
BreakAway’s Ben Smith and Raph Brandon in Europe collaborated with U.S.-based attorney and athlete right’s advocate Michael Clohisy to compile this report.
February 8, 2023
In football there has been an explosion in the collection, aggregation and processing of athlete performance data from wearable, optical, sensor, and tracking technologies. This, alongside established sports science and medical data, informs clubs’ internal player management processes, recruitment strategies, and contractual decisions. It also creates compelling media and commercial narratives, and forms the foundations of the betting markets.
In other words, athlete data is big business.
However, players are mostly excluded from the value (performance and commercial) created by this data. Infrequently, do players get to directly engage with their data to improve performance, and almost never do they get a share of the commercial value created.
Last September, FIFPRO and FIFA launched the game-changing Charter of Player Data Rights (the Charter). It is based on the fundamentals of GDPR and supports players’ privacy rights and helps them gain access to and manage their personal performance, health, and biometric data. Furthermore, player associations are proactively educating players about their data rights and how to enact them. Players are starting to realise that they've been excluded from the benefits of their data, and that they have legal rights to challenge the situation (you only need to look at Project Red Card to see what some players are doing about it). This perfect storm has the potential to significantly impact team culture in terms of trust, accountability, and ultimately performance. Decision-makers need to consider the practical implications of the Charter to understand how a shifting performance data landscape could impact their organisation's performance culture and avoid getting lost in a potential legal/ethical storm.
This article is an attempt to explain, in simple terms, each right in the Charter. The goal is to help football teams navigate this new set of guidelines and suggest ways to proactively implement them into their player data-management protocols so as to support, rather than negatively impact, their performance culture.
What you need to know
There are eight rights mapped out in the Charter. The rights to be ‘informed’ and to ‘access’ underpin the other six. Compliance with these foundational data rights will be met by proactively and adequately informing, educating, and providing the tools players need to exercise their rights with performance, tracking, training and health data. By making this data available to players, in a relevant form, teams can comply with the Charter and create an environment of transparency and trust around player data.
Teams can satisfy the right to data portability by implementing the right to access in a proactive and continual way using a digital platform or app. This would be a best practice benchmark in data access and portability, and it fully meets the standards mapped out in the Charter as it allows players to view and hold their personal performance data. Teams would be truly providing access, going beyond just ‘ticking the box’ of sharing the raw data with a player irregularly, or only in response to a formal request. Instead, teams could deliver continuous and comprehensive data to players in lockstep with how that data is used each week for performance by the team.
The remaining five rights to ‘revoke’, ‘restrict’, ‘rectify’, ‘erase’ and ‘complain’ also follow on from the right to be informed and access. In practical terms, these rights will arise when players believe their data is being used inappropriately, incorrectly or is no longer warranted. Following the advice above (proactively complying with the rights to inform, to access and to portability) would also improve player/club transparency and accountability. Adding in mechanisms and methods for players to revoke, restrict, rectify, erase or make complaints could strengthen this trust. If players do feel justified in individual cases to exercise one or more of these rights, greater transparency and access would encourage more positive engagement between team management and players to solve issues and conflicts.
By working proactively in this space, teams can seize the opportunity to keep data conversations about performance, put the players at the centre of their data collection and discussions, and avoid resource heavy, corrosive and disruptive relationship scenarios if ‘player rights’ surface and dominate.
Let’s expand on each of the Charter’s rights in turn, with practical considerations for teams to consider.
The right to be informed
This ensures players can understand why and how their personal performance data is being used. Performance data may include match data (game stats and physical tracking data); training data (GPS and/or other workload data); sports science testing, biometric and monitoring data; and health/medical data (injury or availability records). For teams to be fully compliant, players should receive in writing, clear and concise information about what is done with their data. They must be able to understand, in plain language, the reasons why teams process their personal data, the retention period for that data, and who it will be shared with.
Currently, most clubs do not provide a clear written explanation of what data are being collected, processed, and why. However, some clubs do verbally explain certain areas of data collection to their players, especially when new technology, devices or performance metrics are being introduced to the team’s performance support processes.
It is probably inevitable that player challenges and information requests on how and why their data is being collected and used will start to occur in elite football, given the Charter, and other player-facing organisations educating players on their data rights. Teams can either wait and react to a formal request, and all the administrative challenges and potential confrontation that comes with it, or implement a proactive, applied solution to share specifics with players about the performance data being collected and used.
The right to access
This allows players to access their personal performance data that the team processes. In plain terms, to be provided with a view and/or receive a copy of the data. It is the team’s responsibility to establish and implement formal right-to-access and full data access request protocols.
One option available to teams is to implement a process to provide players with a copy of their data upon receipt of request. And as part of that, players can inquire about why and how the team processes their data, what categories of personal data are collected and processed, who sees their data (including third parties not employed by the team), and how long and where the team intends to store their data. Therefore, the right to access and to be informed are rolled into one protocol. In doing so, the right to access adds extra transparency to the right to be informed, as players can personally verify what data the team has, compared to the data the team says it has. It also provides the foundation for players to exercise additional rights under the Charter, like the right to rectify, or to erase.
Another option to comply with the right to access is to deliver to players a comprehensive copy of their personal performance data on a daily or weekly basis. Teams already share some player performance data, typically via WhatsApp, email, and/or verbal communication, but this sharing is often not fully comprehensive or based on what the player requests, but rather what the team elects to share. To fully meet the Charter’s requirements something more proactive and systematic is needed. For example, by leveraging technology, teams could transfer those copies digitally and in real time on a smartphone app. This also has the potential to improve data-management efficiency.
The right to data portability
This provides players with the right to receive a digital copy of their personal data collected, processed, and held by the team. Essentially, if personal performance data is stored on a computer and created by a system and software, then the player has the right for it to be transmitted to another team or enterprise. An example could be data created automatically by players wearing a GPS device during matches or training, and then stored digitally in the team’s system.
Data portability follows from data access and it is considered best practice for organisations to offer comprehensive and complete data porting as part of a data access request. Any team that has looked into the practicalities of fulfilling a data porting request will know how much work is involved if this is done on a case-by-case reactive basis. Teams could save themselves future work and costs by implementing a proactive approach.
Furthermore, giving players a choice to store and view their data independently of the team software and systems would be an important, empowering step. Sharing data openly with a player whilst employed by the team, such as giving copies of training and match data, may comply with the rights to be informed and to have access, but could fall short of the right to portability. There are clear examples when a player may want to port their data into an environment not controlled by their club, such as when using their performance data to support a contract re-negotiation, seeking independent medical support, or when moving to a new club.
Historically, players have most likely not exercised this right because a convenient mechanism to do so hasn’t existed. A portability solution would provide the player with the practical option to view, store or utilise their data. Evolving technology can help teams to implement this, alongside educating players on how to exercise this right.
The right to revoke
This allows the player to withdraw consent at any time. The revocation is for future processing of personal performance data. It follows the right to be informed, and best practice would dictate that teams should seek explicit consent for the collection and processing of performance data. For example, a player may not want a team to continue processing sleep or other biometric data.
Current team dynamics may inhibit players from exercising this right, as it could create unnecessary tension and conflict with the team’s coaching or performance staff. Implementing a right to revoke mechanism, therefore, could ameliorate the tension of players revoking their consent and team’s access to their performance data. In doing so, teams will build the trust and transparency needed to encourage a player to revoke use of their personal performance data.
The right to restrict processing
This allows players to limit the processing of their personal data in certain circumstances. This is an alternative to requesting the erasure of their data. Players may exercise this right because they have concerns with the content of the data held and processed by teams. In most cases teams will not be required to restrict a player’s personal data indefinitely, but keeping the restriction in place for a reasonable period of time would meet the requirement of the Charter.
The right to rectification
This provides players with the right to correct inaccurate personal performance or biometric data collected by teams, or have it fully completed if the information collected is not completed. A player can request rectification in writing or verbally, and the team will have a reasonable amount of time (e.g. one calendar month) to respond to them formally, in writing. There are certain circumstances that allow teams to refuse the individual’s request for rectification.
In practical terms, it seems logical that players and teams incentives are aligned here. Teams want accurate data as much as players do, as they are making important performance and recruitment decisions from it. Teams implementing this right will, again, proactively encourage transparency, more efficient team-player management protocols, and performance data sharing mechanisms with its players.
The right to erasure
AKA “the right to be forgotten”, this allows players to request that their data be erased. The request can be made verbally or in writing, and the team must respond within a reasonable amount of time (e.g. one calendar month). It’s worth noting that this right applies only in certain circumstances and is not absolute. For example, players in certain circumstances have the right to compel teams to delete personally identifiable data. Moreover, a player no longer playing for a team may feel it is no longer necessary for their previous team to continue using their data. A team may argue, however, that it is justified in not deleting this data on the grounds it was collected, processed, and stored for performance research.
Many software and data provider partners that work with teams have practical, effective solutions in place to delete players’ data from their systems. Therefore, it should be simple for teams to successfully comply with this right..
The right to complain
Every player should have the right to lodge a complaint with their team or supervisory authority (e.g. FIFPRO or FIFA), if they believe the team is not acting in accordance with a player's data rights. So, as players become more educated about their rights and personal opportunities their performance data could provide, it is likely their expectations will change and instances of complaints will rise.
Examples of complaints would include players alleging their data is being processed, handled, or stored in a non-compliant way. The team should carry out an established protocol following a player’s complaint. The team should also inform the player of the progress and the outcome of the complaint within a reasonable period (e.g. one calendar month). If the complaint requires further investigation or coordination with another supervisory authority, the team should give the player intermediate information. Best practice would see teams implementing complaint submission forms to facilitate the players exercising this right.
Final takeaways
So what does the introduction of the Charter and the growing awareness of player data rights mean for teams?
Teams can continue with the existing status quo, hoping players never exercise their legal data rights, and that Project Red Card loses the court case, somehow collapsing the opportunity for players to benefit economically from their data.
Alternatively, teams can seize the opportunity to proactively support players with their data rights. They can create a greater sense of transparency and trust, engaging players with their performance data whilst simultaneously exploring new data commercialisation opportunities that include players. Thereby, proactively protecting their performance culture by engaging players and mitigating the legal risks of the current data landscape.