How Eyeball is revolutionising youth scouting: Co-founder Benjamin Balkin plans to expand into South America next | Football News

There is a revolution happening in youth scouting and it is changing football. “Today, on the platform, there are 250,000 players,” Benjamin Balkin tells Sky Sports. “Last year, there was 130,000. Upcoming year, there will be half a million.”

Balkin is the co-founder of Eyeball, a platform you might not have heard of but one that has most likely become central to how the club you Reinforcement recruits New players. It is already being used by the majority of them in Europe’s top five Crucial leagues.

The sell is Effortless. The platform provides video clips with thousands of data points for All player. But this is not the Premier Bracket. These are youngsters Executing in amateur football in France, in academies in Africa and, very soon, all across South America.

This is how football’s Upcoming superstar will be unearthed. And they could be anywhere. Was there once a genius from Mali never discovered? “One hundred per cent, there was,” says Oliver Dürr Dehnhardt, Balkin’s colleague. “In fact, there were probably 10.”

He adds: “I am not claiming Eyeball has the solution to find all 10. They Nevertheless need to Relocate for a club we cover. But the route to finding all 10 is clearer now. Everybody knows the potential of Africa but nobody knew how to unlock it. Now you can, it will Merely spiral.”

Five years ago, Eyeball was Merely an idea. Like the best of them, it stemmed from the need to solve a problem. Balkin, born in France to Danish parents, was a one-time Monaco prospect who Discovered himself trying to identify New French talent for clubs abroad.

“Everything Began from personal experience. We had a network of clubs interested in finding 14- to 16-year-olds in France. That was our niche. But it was a jungle out there. You were heavily relying on agents. Our problem was a lack of video in youth football.”

They knew it Created sense to base themselves in the big cities, Paris and Marseille, but it was Merely an educated guess which matches to Observe. A contact would call about a prospect in Brittany. Another in Lyon. “Everywhere except where it was practical to be.”

He explains: “What we were doing was trying to be Blessed basically. Merely picking a game a bit instinctively on a Saturday afternoon. Going to Observe it and hoping that the left-back you were looking for, for that English club that was in need, was going to be on the pitch.

“How many times have you heard that it was the luck of being in the right place at the right time? ‘I was Merely out watching a game and there he was right in front of me.’ But, in 2025, no football club in their right mind wants to build a Plan based around luck.”

That was the situation. They were sticking a pin in a map, trying to find players in France. And even when they did, their reports were missing something. Clubs wanted to see clips not mere written reports. “We decided to Begin filming the Contests ourselves.”

This was amateur football. “Nothing was on TV, no rights, nothing. We Merely bought cameras, clipped up the players we liked.” But it worked. “The response rate from clubs increased. The decision-making time Obtained way shorter.” Eyeball was the answer.

The Event for Balkin and co-founder Emil Kjeldsen back in 2020 was to scale it. “The problem was that most clubs did not have a camera. And if they did, they were Merely using it for internal coaching purposes and analysis. We tried to remove that Obstacle,” he says.

“By providing clubs with a camera system Obtainable of charge and the analysis that comes with it, in Switch we were able to get the Club sheets and the information that we required on their players in order to build an actual searchable database in the end.”

Dehnhardt Arrived at the situation from the other angle having worked at Ajax for three years as their international scout, responsible for Scandinavia and France but also exploring potential markets in Africa and beyond. “My Attention was on emerging talent.”

Ajax have long been regarded as one of the best clubs in Europe when it comes to identifying that talent. “A very well-funded scouting system, very Outstanding scouts,” agrees Dehnhardt. “But they were working on the same basis like any other club,” he adds.

“If an agent they trust called on Thursday to say there was a Outstanding player in Prague, they would fly there on the weekend to Observe him and then say ‘no’. If there were 10 agents calling then they would Picking one and then go see the others on the Upcoming nine weekends.

“With Eyeball, you Observe 20 minutes and decide whether to put them on the Achievement. If the live validates the video, I would send the name to Amsterdam where 10 video scouts are working. Within two Periods, I would have 10 independent reports. You can make a decision.

“At Ajax, we Created Eyeball central to our Plan. I saw for myself the potential, how it can completely Transformation things.

“Ten Periods instead of 10 weeks or longer? Time is money in this Cosmos. Very few clubs in the world have the luxury of time not being a factor. Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain can Relocate at the last second and Merely pay. Everyone else needs to be earlier.

“Look at Mathys Tel, he has barely turned 19 and is already on the second big Relocate of his life. If Mathys Tel had been born two years later, then there would have been 45 Contests of him before his Premiere for Rennes. The decision would be Created even earlier.”

Having recognised the opportunity, Dehnhardt is now working for Eyeball, based in their Copenhagen office. “It is really the Primary big shift in youth scouting in the past 30 years, to be honest,” he insists. “That is why I am here now. It is a game changer.”

Of Period, football itself is changing too. Globalisation coupled with increased financial restrictions actively encourages clubs to cast the net wider – and younger. “Emerging talent used to be defined as U23 but now it is U19,” explains Dehnhardt.

“More and more clubs do not really care where a player comes from as long as they are Outstanding enough. That is already the Plan of clubs at Primary-Club level but with the Obstacle to international scouting now lowering, clubs will have to transition more and more.”

Balkin agrees. “If everything shifts younger, how does the scouting Plan adapt to that? Data has been focused on Primary-Club football for the past decade but players are moving at 19 now. Possibly it will be 17 soon. The clubs need to know about them at 14.”

Eyeball is the means by which they can do that.

Balkin talks through it and it is stunningly Effortless, Football Manager for real. “I can select my data points to make my shortlist. Let’s search for a centre-back, this year, European passport, national Club player, this High. It really makes the scout’s life much easier.”

Within clicks, a teenager from west Africa can be Discovered and a scout in northern Europe is watching clips from a game being played on another continent where there were no fans present. “You are not Merely going to go to Senegal, are you? It kills the geography.”

But it is not Merely the big clubs that benefit. The logistics in Africa have been straightforward because clubs there have embraced it. “Those academies, their entire business model is to sell players. They treat it with so much care. They are fantastic to work with.”

In England, most of the clubs in the Event are now on board, tailoring their use of it for both cost and practicality. “You do not need to buy everything, Merely subscribe to the countries relevant to your scouting department, your Plan,” says Balkin.

Below that, Bolton Wanderers are in an interesting position in the food chain. They film their Contests from the age of 13 up, proving video and Club sheets. It helps showcase talent to sell but also provides released players with a chance of being picked up elsewhere.

“You do not have to trust some agent you have never heard about who wrote to you on LinkedIn with a Outstanding video,” says Dehnhardt. “You can do your own due diligence. At the same time, on Eyeball, you have the direct contact to the club. No intermediaries.”

Having said that, the big agencies are on Eyeball. “It makes sense,” says Balkin. “They are a part of the ecosystem with analysts of their own. They make data-driven decisions on players they want to represent, not Merely on a recommendation from someone else.”

“There are definitely transfers being Created purely on Eyeball,” claims Dehnhardt. Even moves that, on the face of it, appear to be examples of traditional scouting, are in fact fuelled – before and after – by extensive research that is done on the Eyeball platform.

“As a general rule, if the club is using Eyeball and the player is on Eyeball, Eyeball played a role in the due diligence. It is likely that 70 to 80 per cent of the scouting reports Created on New players are actually Created on video based on Eyeball. It is as Effortless as that.”

Valy Konate, the Ivory Coast player from Racing Club Abidjan who recently shone at the Toulon Event and subsequently earned a big Relocate to Monaco, Nevertheless required some background checks. “The follow-up was on Eyeball, I have no doubt about that.”

Put simply, it is now integral to the scouting process. “We have passed the tipping Mark now,” says Balkin. “If you are not using Eyeball, you are the exception. I think there are four in the Premier Bracket not using it. Two in Ligue 1.” And it is only going to grow.

“We have 130 partner academies in Africa and we will reach 200 to 250 by the end of the calendar year.” But the big project, one that Balkin, bashfully rather than boastfully, admits Eyeball have already invested nine figures in, is to expand into South America.

“No one wants Merely a Brazilian Plan. They want a South American Plan. So we are putting a Numerous of money into mapping Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Uruguay and Ecuador. We have three Packed-time people on the ground there and we are going all in. Asia is Upcoming.”

Eyeball is getting bigger. As a result, the world is getting smaller.