AFC Bournemouth announce three-year partnership with Catapult
English football club, AFC Bournemouth, have announced a three-year partnership with wearable technology and performance analytics company, Catapult, becoming the ninth Premier League club to adopt the world-leading technology.
Catapult, an Australian sports analytics company that has offices in Leeds and London, engineer wearable devices and accompanying proprietary software that monitors athlete movement on the pitch. Recording data at over 1000 data points per second, the Catapult system shows sports scientists, performance analysts and managers how fast players are, how far they’ve run, and a host of other performance-related metrics that summarise the volume, intensity and explosiveness of each training or match.
Already working with six Premier League teams going into the 2016-17 season, AFC Bournemouth are the most recent club to join the wearables revolution in professional football.
Catapult Chief Commercial Officer, Steve Power, described his pleasure at welcoming AFC Bournemouth to the Catapult client list.
“We are excited to welcome AFC Bournemouth,” Power said. “As the latest in a number of Premier League clubs to recently join Catapult and use our world-leading technology to confidently support the management of their players through the first team and under-21s for at least the next three seasons”.
Catapult Head of UK Sales, Curt Taylor, is also looking forward to working with the Premier League club.
“Working closely with yet another club from the most physically-demanding football league in the world,” Taylor said. “In addition to working closely with more forward-thinking and innovative individuals like Dan Hodges [Head of Sports Science, AFC Bournemouth] will ensure that both Catapult and our clients continue to benefit from the most innovative, reliable and applicable player monitoring technology in the world”.
Dan Hodges, Head of Sports Science at AFC Bournemouth, said: “We are excited to be linking up with Catapult, and are very much looking forward to moving onto the next level with our training analysis.
“Monitoring the training load that is put through our players on a daily basis, is paramount to ensure the team are in optimal condition leading into each premier league match. Through the use of Catapult we are able to analyse every move each player makes and interpret how this will impact their physical condition, and ultimately the team performance on a match day.”
AFC Bournemouth will be utilising 40 OptimEye S5 devices to monitor outfield players from their first team and under-21 program, as well as 10 OptimEye G5s to monitor goalkeepers throughout the club.
About AFC Bournemouth
AFC Bournemouth are a professional football club, who currently sit tenth in the Premier League – their second season in the top flight.
Nicknamed the Cherries, the club was founded in 1899 as Boscombe FC, later becoming Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic in 1923, and finally AFC Bournemouth in 1972.
AFC Bournemouth moved to their current Dean Court site, in Kings Park, in 1910 and have remained there ever since, with the exception of a brief, temporary spell at Dorchester’s Avenue Stadium in 2001, while Dean Court was being rebuilt.
In recent years, under the management of Eddie Howe, the Cherries have risen quickly through the football pyramid, with three promotions in just six seasons taking them from League Two to the Premier League.