Nordensa, powered by Premier League-level scouts, allows fans to bring football’s most promising new talent from around the world to the clubs they love.
This empowering new scheme will launch in 2023 and puts financial power back in the hands of fans, rather than the select few at the top who currently have so much way over how football operates.
Read below for a Q&A explaining more about Nordensa and its aims…
- What partner clubs does the agency have in mind in which to place their players?
The first step is to line up with the clubs and figure out what type of positions each of them has to fill in order to be able to meet those needs. Having already profiled and vetted each player through our scouting team, this is the next step in the chain. So it’s not a “one size fits all” approach, but more like matchmaking. We suggest a shortlist of players to each club and once they approve that list, those players will be listed on the app for the fans to bid on.
Ahead of the summer transfer window, we’ll be announcing the first partner clubs along with the first shortlisted players, which is when the app will be going live.
- Which underprivileged areas have had Nordensa scouts visit, and have players and their families been receptive to the agency’s approach?
We collaborate with scouts and agents based in different corners of the world, and we have particularly active relationships with scouts in countries like Brazil and Ghana. While the core of our in-house scouting team is based in Europe, thanks to today’s technology we’re able to look at stats and data before analysing video broadcasts and exchange impressions with the talent scouts based on the ground without us having to actually go there – which gives us a much wider reach than if we had to visit every single country.
We’ve also incorporated a mental health coach to help guide players through the process of moving to Europe and joining a professional here in the continent. For young players in particular, this move can come with a lot to handle in terms of being in a completely new environment (with the cultural shock that entails), away from family and with expectations to perform at a certain level – and we want to ensure that players can navigate that with the adequate support without being left to sort that out alone. It is also ultimately about performance and ensuring that players have their house in order to be able to focus on doing their best in what they came to Europe to do – and to fully enjoy that experience and opportunity.
This is a major part of our approach which agents, players and clubs have shown strong interest in and are fully behind it.
- How long has the scouting process been for each player in Nordensa’s care?
Our scouting team joined us last November and we’ve begun compiling a list of players ever since. How long each player takes to be vetted depends on a few factors, such as where they’re based, whether we have someone on the ground, what kind of data we have available, if we’re able to look at video footage from the games, etc.
All the details make it into our comprehensive database so that we can prepare to match these players to relevant positions in relevant clubs when the time comes to it.
What happens if the player invested in isn’t the right fit for the club where he’s placed and he either wants to leave or the club wants him out? Where does the investors’ money go?
Each financed player is brought onto their team with a one-year development contract. If after that year, the player goes back to their previous team or is signed by a different club, backers don’t get their initial investment back, but they’re still entitled to 3% of the player’s salary for the next five years; as the funding contract is still between the backers and the player, rather than the club.
If after the one-year development contract, the player is signed by the club they went to with the help of the backers, those backers get their initial investment back plus the 3% of the player’s salary for the next five years.
The only instance in which the backers wouldn’t make any money is if the player quits football altogether after the development contract ends.
- Is there an amount that must be raised for the player to be 100 percent accepted on the program? What’s the situation if there aren’t enough funds raised to put a player onto the platform (i.e. does the player not get taken on, do investors have their money returned)?
Players are only taken on by the club if 100% of the funding is raised. If that amount is not reached, the deal is off and investors get their money back right away.
- Presumably the 3% total salary will be significantly diluted the more investors that invest in a particular player, and much will depend on the initial investment in any event?
That 3% is split between all backers for a player. The total funding is split between 1,000 shares (with the cost of each share depending on the cost of that player’s first-year development contract), but there’s no limit on the number of shares anyone can buy, so the more shares you buy from a player’s contract, the higher percentage you own on that return.
- Just how good are these players expected to be? If there are ‘Premier League level’ scouts that have already scouted them, why aren’t the Premier League (or lower level) clubs already interested?
Scouts usually have exclusive deals with one particular club, and clubs also have a limit as to the number of players they can bring on board within a particular transfer window and especially from abroad, particularly if we’re talking non-EU players.
So even for these scouts, it is not possible to bring every player they’re excited about to their club. They may simply not have room for them, or it may not be the right fit for their needs at that particular time, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t make a great impact when positioned elsewhere with a different club – and there are parts of the world where the amount of hot football talent far surpasses the possibilities of getting picked up by a European club.
The other thing is that our aim is to bring this resource to as wide a pool of clubs as possible. International scouting can be expensive, and time-consuming as just possibly out of reach for a lot of the clubs outside the very top handful of each country’s league in the continent. Not everyone has the means to discover the next Messi or Neymar, but that doesn’t mean that they (nor the players with a harder chance to get spotted) should miss out on that opportunity.
The amount of incredible talent in underprivileged areas around the world that goes to waste because of a lack of scouting resources on the part of most clubs is a crying shame for the world of football. And we’re bringing fans a world-first chance to turn this around and have a say in that process.
- Can investors track the progress of ‘their’ player and/or invest in other players, move their investment around if they don’t feel their initial player investment is providing value?
Investors will be able to track the progress of their player from day one – and if you’re a local fan of a particular club, it doesn’t get much closer to tracking progress than seeing your investment in the pitch during home games.
There’s also no limit on the number of players you can invest in, for your club or elsewhere.
We’re also working on bringing on board a shares marketplace where investors can trade their shares in a player’s contract. This function will not be immediately available at launch, but we’ll work to ensure this is a key part of the platform as soon as possible.
- What will the process of investing in the player look like? eg will there be videos available of the player in action, are things like his speed, ball control abilities, goals-to-games ratio etc made available to prospective investors?
Our developers are working hard to deliver the simplest and smoothest process possible. In this first version of the app, backers will be able to sign in on their account, check the list of players available for funding, the club they’re shortlisted for, general information on their skills, stats and playing style as well as some basic personal details, leading to the option to buy shares from their contract within a few clicks.
The next step we’re working on is to have a deep data tab on every player, for all the would-be football managers out there that just love player stats and data.
- Will there be any penalties for investors removing their investment before the year is up if there’s something they’re not happy with?
The option to take back the first-year investment won’t be available. Once the shares are bought, the backers own them and can’t get their money back until and if the player gets a contract with that same club after the first year.
That’ll be a different story once we’re able to bring in the shares marketplace, though that will mean having to sell their shares onto another potential investor.
- How many players will be scouted for this particular platform and what is the expectation of genuine success?
As many quality players as possible and as many as the market needs. For Nordensa, the mark of success would be for us to be able to say that we have transferred players to every club in Europe in need of scouting power help. It is a very long-term goal but we are here to achieve exactly that: a long-term, tangible impact in the world of football that forever changes the way fans interact with the clubs they love, giving them a level of decision-making power and potential reward that until now was just in the hands of very few people.
- Is this the future of fan association with the world of football?
We certainly believe so! Otherwise, we wouldn’t even entertain getting involved. For us it’s all in, or nothing at all.
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