Insider Reveals Kevin de Bruyne’s Clever Strategy to Secure Lucrative Man City Contract
Kevin de Bruyne negotiated his own Manchester City deal in 2021, and the manner in which he did so reflects the direction of modern game.
When people talk about football recruitment, transfers, and contract renewals, pictures of scouts wearing big jackets watching games in the rain or agents demanding mega sums in fancy offices come to mind.
Movies and prejudices may be to blame, but there is no doubting that football is still a little backwards when it comes to business.
There are still people that use data and statistics to get an advantage at the highest level.
Premier League clubs such as Brighton and Brentford are leading the push, employing data analysis to locate and sign undervalued players.
Because they can continuously replenishing their playing squad, their Moneyball method allows them to remain competitive despite having their top talents plucked by richer clubs.
Data is becoming the trendy way to go about recruiting, but it isn’t used as much in player contract talks.
Kevin de Bruyne, on the other hand, swam against the current in 2021, when he signed a new contract with City.
The Belgian midfielder exploited data, not simply his rank, to become the club’s highest earner, earning an estimated £400,000 every week.
Ben Foster and guest Amr discussed how De Bruyne used analytics to secure a wage that he believed suited his role at the club on the newest episode of the Fozvast.
“Kevin de Bruyne hired a data analytics company to help him negotiate his contract,” Amr said.
“He got a 30 percent increase because of the data about how impactful he is in that team.
“This is just one element. Every single element of football is going to be transformed by data.”
Foster, who is considering whether to resume his retirement after a brief spell at Wrexham, then speculated that using data analysis could become the norm for players and agents.
“So not only can clubs use all this information and collate all this data on any given player they want, but you could have an agent with a list of players,” the former Premier League goalkeeper said.
“He could be approaching clubs and saying, ‘I’ve looked at your club, your stats and data, and I have a player who is tailor-made to you team’. We could get to that point couldn’t we?”
