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60

Can AI Predict Your Child’s Future as a Footballer? | Haniff Brown, FIT:MATCH.ai

August 17, 2026

Could AI change the way young footballers are scouted?Footballers are getting taller, and physical development is becoming an increasingly important part of the conversation around youth football.

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Can AI Predict Your Child’s Future as a Footballer? | Haniff Brown, FIT:MATCH.ai

About this episode

Could AI change the way young footballers are scouted? Footballers are getting taller, and physical development is becoming an increasingly important part of the conversation around youth football. But when two players of the same age can be at completely different stages of growth and maturation, are we judging young talent fairly? In this episode of Project Footballer, Sean sits down with Haniff Brown, Founder and CEO of FIT: MATCH.ai, to explore how artificial intelligence and computer vision could transform youth football scouting and player development. FIT: MATCH.ai uses just four smartphone images to assess a young athlete's growth and development - including how fast they're growing, whether they're an early or late developer, when they're likely to hit their growth spurt and their predicted adult height.

In this episode

  • Why height and physical maturation matter in youth football scouting
  • How AI can predict a young player's future height and growth trajectory
  • Why an early-developing 14-year-old may outperform a late developer - without necessarily having more long-term potential
  • How professional clubs are beginning to use technology to assess academy players
  • The limitations of traditional scouting and physical measurements
  • How smartphones could give scouts, coaches and parents access to data previously reserved for sports scientists
  • Whether technology could help prevent talented late developers from being overlooked

As AI becomes a bigger part of professional sport, could technology like this fundamentally change how we identify and develop the next generation of footballers?

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