0:01

This is the Silver Fox Hustle podcast

0:03

and

0:32

I'm your host , shasi , and today

0:34

it's another episode of the Football Talk

0:36

episodes , and in the house today is

0:39

a special guest . But before that , please

0:41

do not forget to click on the follow

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button , subscribe button . We are on YouTube , spotify , apple Podcast . We do not

0:45

forget to click on the follow button , subscribe button . We are on YouTube , spotify , apple

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Podcasts . We're everywhere . So please click on the follow and

0:50

subscribe button . Now , today we

0:52

are going to talk about technology

0:55

in football . Yeah , I know , I did

0:57

speak to someone from Catapult

0:59

some time back , mr Benoit

1:01

, my good friend and we did speak about

1:04

technology in sport and how we can

1:06

use it , especially

1:08

in the professional football level

1:11

. But today we've got a

1:14

co-founder and the CEO of

1:16

Coach Hub and that's spelled as

1:18

K-O-A-C-H-N-Hub

1:20

, h-u-b , and he is going

1:22

to share with us a little bit more

1:24

about technology and how it can be used , I

1:27

think at the present moment here

1:29

in Singapore , especially with the SYL

1:31

on the Singapore Youth League , on how

1:33

the academies can be using

1:35

this platform . Welcome to the

1:38

podcast . The co-founder and CEO

1:40

of Coach Hub , mr Tarek Kasim .

1:42

Thanks , ashir , good morning . Thanks for having

1:44

me . I've

1:47

been following your podcasts over the years and to be actually in

1:49

it is an absolute honor and a privilege , so thank

1:52

you very much .

1:52

Yeah , and it's an honor to have you in as well . Thanks

1:55

for being here . You have been busy

1:58

traveling here and there and everywhere the past

2:00

couple of weeks . Is this for business or for

2:02

?

2:03

I wish it was for pleasure , but no

2:05

it was for business . Yeah

2:07

, I've been quite busy , but I guess in

2:09

this moment busy is good .

2:11

Good , good , yep , yep , and I think we'll talk a

2:13

little bit about that part where you know you

2:15

were overseas doing a little bit of business , and we

2:17

will talk a little bit about some things

2:19

that you have tied in , you

2:22

know , with some federations the past

2:24

couple of weeks . Now I

2:26

just want to talk about how Coach

2:28

Hub started with you , and

2:31

I was reading this and

2:33

this was in the Coach Hub

2:35

website . It says this

2:38

is how the story began . Our product

2:40

journey mirrors the transformation

2:42

of a father into a dedicated soccer

2:45

dad . It's a deeply personal journey

2:47

that our co-founder , tariq Qasim , took

2:49

, and we're proud to enable that transformation

2:51

to countless parents around the globe . Now

2:54

, when I was reading this , tariq

2:56

, what caught my eye was the

2:58

parents bit . You know the

3:00

father bit , which is you , obviously , and

3:03

I quite like that because I'm a football

3:05

dad as well and we have football moms

3:07

everywhere and it's so , so huge here in Singapore

3:09

. I think you know that your son is

3:12

playing as well . Take us through

3:14

how this journey started with you , tariq .

3:17

Yeah , so personal story indeed

3:19

. So I've been in tech all my

3:21

life , for more than the last two decades

3:23

Working for large organizations

3:26

banks , airlines

3:28

, doing digital transformation projects

3:30

and

3:32

, yeah , my son plays football

3:34

and it came to a stage where

3:36

I had to decide look , am I going to

3:39

continue with my

3:41

career or do something different

3:43

that could help my son and

3:45

, like you said , thousands of other kids around the

3:47

world ? Now what

3:50

I realized very quickly as my son

3:52

started his journey is there is

3:54

no player data which actually

3:56

could back him to

3:58

go to the next level . Right , because you

4:01

know you start in grassroots and go into

4:03

the academies and go up the ladder right . And

4:05

, as you know , football is like a pyramid . So

4:08

in youth football , especially

4:10

at the lower age groups , there was no data , and

4:14

that led me to go and speak to other

4:16

parents , coaches , and that's where I realized

4:19

that there is nothing to

4:21

back a kid's performance in terms of data . So

4:25

that's what made me , you know , make the

4:27

decision .

4:27

So when you say data and backed

4:29

by data , and you wanted your son to have

4:32

all this data at your fingertips and whatever

4:34

, what was basically missing

4:36

? And how would you think that you

4:39

know the academies or you know whatever

4:41

clubs at age group level ? How

4:43

do they , you know , come up with

4:45

their data in your own

4:47

view ?

4:49

Yeah , so if you look at the most simple form of data

4:51

, let's say match statistics , Currently

4:55

this is going on in so many other leagues around

4:57

the world . Let's assume I mean our

4:59

sons . They are the similar ages , right , they

5:01

play a season . As

5:04

a parent , I don't have the data of

5:07

how many matches he played , the

5:09

opponents he played against , you know

5:11

, potentially the goals assist hopefully

5:14

not by the red cards or yellow cards it's

5:17

there somewhere . It's either with the league organizers

5:19

, it's maybe with the academy or the club , or

5:22

it may be in , you know , little bits of

5:24

paper shoved under some cabinets .

5:26

The coaches , the individual coaches , they

5:28

have their own Exactly , they have their own

5:30

little notes . So if

5:33

I wanted something immediate there was

5:35

nothing kind of in my fingertips , Interesting

5:37

and yeah , that seemed to be a problem . Exactly

5:40

, you know Exactly . I

5:44

think you really hit on something there , because take

5:46

, for example , academy A . They play

5:49

in today's game , for example in the SYL

5:51

, and then a

5:53

so-called match report comes

5:55

up . And it comes

5:57

up written , typewritten

6:00

or whatever by the coach , the individual

6:03

coach , correct ? And then what happens then ? Right , so it's only for the consumption by the coach , the individual

6:05

coach , correct . And then what happens then ? Right , so it's only for the

6:07

consumption of the coach , maybe for his feedback

6:09

to the players ? Maybe , yes , and even if

6:11

it goes out , it's not

6:13

immediate

6:16

.

6:17

You know that kind of thing Correct . It's

6:19

not immediate and I think it's not consolidated as

6:21

well .

6:22

Right .

6:23

Because the match report has the information of all the players

6:25

and statistics and there is a considerable

6:27

amount of data in the report , right , but if

6:29

you take a look at a parent's perspective

6:32

or even a coach's perspective , he

6:34

needs a bit of effort to consolidate 10

6:37

, 15 , 20 match reports into the different

6:39

players you

6:45

know , put it up in an Excel sheet and get one consolidated report per

6:47

player .

6:47

This will only happen if the individual parent does it on his own . You know what I mean

6:49

, like he

6:51

tracks only his player , his son

6:54

.

6:54

Yes , yes , correct .

6:56

And not many will do that as

6:59

in consistently every single

7:01

game . Okay , how many minutes did he play Yellow

7:04

cards ? What was the performance

7:07

like ? How long did he run ? How much did

7:09

he run Passes into the attacking

7:11

third , whatever ? So

7:13

it's a tough one , isn't ?

7:14

it . It's very tough , sashi , and I

7:17

know a couple of parents here in Singapore who

7:19

actually track it . I mean they are at the stadium , I

7:22

mean dedicated soccer dads . Right , they are

7:24

at the stadium taking it

7:26

on . The notes on their phone

7:29

. But yeah , it's all manual at the moment

7:31

. Right right right .

7:32

So you decided to yeah , okay , let's start this one

7:34

. It's amazing , Like from scratch

7:36

. So you got a partner .

7:38

Yeah , so I thought you know I'm going

7:40

to quit my full-time job . Wow

7:42

, at

7:44

that time I was working for a Danish company

7:47

in Singapore heading their software development for the

7:49

region . I called one

7:51

of my partners , a co-founder . His name is

7:53

Kamila . I called him and said look

7:56

, let's . I

7:59

said , look , I want to quit my job and

8:01

start this company and do this

8:03

. And his first question was

8:05

bro , are you all right ?

8:07

Yeah , are you all right ?

8:09

What got into you ? And then I explained , I

8:11

explained the situation to him and he

8:13

was a former rugby player , uh , professionally

8:16

, and he immediately got it and

8:18

he was like look , this is not only for football , but but

8:20

yeah , it's almost every sport . Yeah , uh

8:23

, you know this , this problem , uh is

8:25

there and yeah , and uh

8:27

, you know , like they say , the rest is history , wow

8:29

wonderful , so how long has this been going

8:32

? From the time it started . We

8:34

are in our third year at the moment .

8:36

Right and we

8:38

will talk about , you know , the people

8:40

, or the academies and the clubs and

8:42

the federations that you hooked up with in

8:44

this very short span of time three years

8:46

is not long , you know , it's

8:48

a very young company and we're

8:51

going to talk about that let's for

8:53

the viewers and to listeners listening

8:56

in to this . Let's break this down , you

8:58

know , because , yeah , okay , this

9:00

is the solution , but what

9:02

does it entail ? What goes into

9:04

the product ? Which is Coach Hub , right , so

9:07

let's break this down . Which is CoachHub ? Right

9:09

, so let's break this down In terms of the what . So

9:11

we talk about the technologies , the wearables

9:14

and the software and whatever . So how does this work

9:16

now ? Tariq ?

9:17

So CoachHub is a mobile app

9:19

. It's on the cloud , as we call it , so it's a SaaS platform

9:21

. It's

9:24

a platform on the cloud Academies

9:26

. So basically , the coaches , the parents

9:28

, the players , they can download the application from Google

9:30

Play or Apple the stores . It

9:33

runs on iPhones , androids

9:35

, tablets and for some

9:37

of the you know kind of the heavy

9:39

lifting components , there's a lot of labor intensive

9:42

work from the club side we

9:44

have a web version as well . So

9:46

that's kind of the technology stack on how it

9:48

works .

9:48

Okay , so that's the technology part . How

9:51

about the hardware , the wearables

9:53

? And whatever it

9:55

must be a wearable .

9:57

No , so we are actually a platform , okay , and then

9:59

what we do is we are partnered with wearable companies

10:01

Right Say , for example . We are partnered with

10:03

Playmaker . Okay . We are partnered with

10:05

Beyond Pulse . Okay , then we

10:07

are partnered with a league management platform called

10:09

.

10:09

Dribbble . Okay .

10:10

And hopefully many other wearables . So

10:13

we kind of become a data aggregation platform where we consolidate

10:16

the data from these different devices .

10:18

So talk to us about the wearables . What kind ? Okay

10:20

, for example , academy A right

10:22

, so what do they have to do

10:24

in terms of , yeah , you sign up for the

10:26

platform and CoachHub and all . So

10:28

, in terms of the wearables bit , what do

10:31

they have to do ?

10:32

So what CoachHub does is ? There are a couple of things that the

10:34

platform does . One is , like I

10:37

said , lack of player data , so we capture player

10:39

data . Now , if you look at player data , we

10:41

capture basic

10:44

stuff for clubs . So , we capture

10:46

attendance Hopefully

10:49

not , but injuries of players . There

10:52

are statistics of every matches , every games , etc

10:54

. And then we have an integration to wearable

10:56

devices where a club can subscribe to

10:58

one of the wearable integration partners , purchase

11:01

those wearable devices and then we suck that information

11:04

as well . So what Coach

11:06

Hub does is it's a combination of attendance

11:08

, injuries , the players'

11:11

bio data and

11:14

everything related to a player , including

11:16

the wearable component .

11:18

So actually , if a

11:20

club wants to sign up without the wearables , it's

11:22

okay . Oh , 100% .

11:24

So how we have developed it is Sashi . We have developed

11:26

it especially with grassroot

11:28

clubs and academies

11:30

in mind , because if you look at the top tier

11:32

clubs , they have all the fame , they have

11:35

the resources , they have the money

11:37

to develop anything and everything they want , but

11:40

the grassroot sector is the most ignored

11:42

sector of the sport , as you may

11:44

know . But interestingly , that's the sector

11:46

that provides the players , because , invariably

11:49

, all the stars have played for some grassroots

11:52

. So if you look at you know , back to

11:54

your question about a grassroots club of them

11:56

using us without these wearables , okay , 100%

11:59

, because we bring in all the club operations

12:01

into one platform . Okay . A simple example

12:03

if you go to a particular academy , they

12:05

could be using Google Calendar for scheduling

12:08

. Yep . WhatsApp to message the players . Right

12:11

Excel sheets to monitor player

12:13

statistics . Right they could be using Google Calendar

12:15

for scheduling WhatsApp to message the players . Excel sheets

12:17

to monitor player statistics . So we kind of combine everything into one

12:19

single platform , the wearables is just a plug-in to what we do .

12:21

Okay , so I'm a dad now , right , I

12:23

want to know all the information without

12:26

the wearables , right ? So

12:31

what are the kind of information that I can get if the club is subscribed

12:33

to this coach hub ?

12:34

Sure , so all the basic information of my

12:37

son or daughter .

12:38

Okay .

12:38

Height , weight , the height and weight progress

12:41

Right . Then we have what

12:43

we call the IDP , the individual

12:45

development plans , or the individual action

12:47

plans , as they call it . So almost every

12:49

club . They follow the four corners model , which is technical

12:51

, tactical , physical , social . So based on

12:53

that they grade the kids you know what your

12:55

shooting is , how you're shooting , passing

12:57

, dribbling , if it's like communication

13:00

, leadership , so it's kind of that 360 degree

13:02

view of the kid . All that is maintained

13:04

. Like I said , attendance

13:07

is maintained as well . Hopefully

13:09

not . But injuries , if there's any medical

13:11

conditions , injuries , because again , sashi

13:13

, in youth football injuries is something that's a bit

13:16

ignored . Yeah , so

13:18

that's saved as well . And

13:20

obviously the match statistics Nice . So what we

13:22

do is we give that whole 360-degree

13:25

view of a player and

13:28

everything and anything he does .

13:33

So this will be in the records for the club itself , right , 100%

13:35

. And if , for example , the player moves

13:38

on to Club B , for example next year

13:40

, Correct . So if that particular

13:42

club has Coach

13:44

Sharp , then it's not a problem . So

13:46

then you can then the

13:48

players . What do you

13:50

call it ? The records are there in

13:53

history , correct in the in the club's history in

13:55

terms of the year maybe he played in 2000 and

13:57

whatever 100 .

13:58

Yes , so the club . The club has the player's history

14:01

. But remember , when it comes to data , the club

14:03

owns all the players data , right , but

14:05

as a player , I own my data as well so

14:07

if I'm to go to a different club , okay

14:09

, I can export my data and

14:12

have my data in a PDF file or

14:14

something like that , so that is not lost

14:16

, even for me as a player . One

14:20

latest development , and which

14:22

I'm sure we'll talk about in a while

14:24

, is what we have done is actually we

14:26

also built a scouting platform on

14:28

top of this for federations , where

14:30

the scouting platform sucks in all

14:33

the information into one consolidated

14:35

view . So as a federation or association , I get

14:37

a bird's eye view of all the

14:39

data of every player in the

14:41

nation . Wow . So

14:44

basically , let's assume your son has played

14:46

two or three clubs over , let's say four , five

14:48

, six years .

14:48

Yeah .

14:49

All that consolidated data is in our

14:51

scouting platform anyway , which could be viewed by the

14:53

federation or your son or

14:55

daughter as well .

14:56

Wow , this is , this is brilliant . Actually , you

14:59

know , because we talk about

15:01

the scouting network and all this makes

15:03

it a little bit easy for

15:05

you know , the federation to actually look

15:07

at the path of this player so far

15:10

and what he's done maybe in 2019

15:13

, for example , and then now and what his progress

15:15

is and things like that .

15:17

So you've actually worked with the federation on this

15:19

? Yes , we are currently working with the

15:21

Lao Football Federation and

15:23

they have implemented us . They are using us .

15:26

We will talk about this tie

15:28

up . I think this is a wonderful

15:31

example as well . This

15:34

is a question I need to ask you right . Has

15:37

there been any request

15:40

from a client like something out of the world

15:42

? I don't know , maybe they want something

15:44

else out of the box , have

15:46

you ?

15:47

Yes , we do get a lot of requests from clubs , okay , but again you'll be surprised by the requests

15:49

because again , look , I mean out of the box , have you ? Yes , yes , we do get a lot of requests from clubs

15:51

, okay , but again you'll be surprised by the requests because

15:53

again , look , I mean we are

15:55

a football app and looking into data

15:57

and operations yeah . But even

16:00

requests like look , can we track

16:02

payments through the

16:04

Coach Hub app , because Payments of what Players

16:07

play academies Most of the clubs

16:09

are pay-to-play . Okay . Can

16:11

we track payments . So that was a massive request

16:14

we got from quite a number of clubs .

16:15

It's a good question . Actually , it is a good question

16:17

.

16:17

Right and I

16:20

mean and it works , you know because ? So

16:23

now what we have done is so , based on that request we

16:25

have , we have developed a payment module

16:27

which now automates

16:29

the entire payment collection of

16:31

a club or an academy . So that's automated

16:34

, so there is no need of an accountant calling your parents

16:36

and saying , look , you missed the payments and all . So

16:38

that is one . But more

16:40

on the football development side . Yes , there are clubs

16:42

, because

16:47

we work with very grassroots clubs . An example is

16:49

Garuda Lions is an Indonesian grassroot club . It's a non-profit

16:51

club run

16:54

for the kind of underprivileged

16:56

kids

16:58

in Jakarta . So

17:02

we work with them . So it's the very basic

17:04

version that they use . But at the same time we work

17:06

with some academies and elite academies as well so

17:08

the more elite academies have asked us for

17:11

you know , is it possible to bring in more data , more

17:13

? Parameters Okay . So

17:15

it's a mix of requests

17:18

that we get from clubs .

17:19

So you do take in feedback and try to

17:21

do something about it . The payment thing

17:23

, you've actually done it .

17:25

We have done it . So what we do is actually , we take

17:27

feedback from clubs Right

17:30

, and we are very serious about feedback , because that's the

17:32

only thing that could help us improve . Of course

17:34

, good feedback and bad

17:36

feedback Right , it helps

17:38

us develop a better product

17:40

. So what we do is we take feedback from clubs

17:43

. We have a product team that takes in

17:45

all this feedback , and

17:54

then what we do is we validate that feedback with our other customers around the world . Okay

17:56

, uh , we check , look , is this relevant because we are a single platform ? Okay , uh , is this relevant

17:58

? Uh , should , should this ? Um , you know , would this work for you ? Okay , and then , if it's um , a overwhelming

18:01

majority , or if we find

18:03

that it makes sense , then we include it . So we do

18:05

a release , or new feature release , uh , every

18:07

quarter right , right , this Actually

18:10

it's a great one , especially the .

18:11

I didn't think about the payment part . You know , obviously it's not

18:13

part of football and

18:16

whatever , but academies , right . So

18:18

they want that to be automated

18:20

as well .

18:20

And it's relevant , shashi , because I mean you

18:23

got to buy your jerseys and you know .

18:29

You know , as in if we're

18:31

talking about the automated part , you know that you haven't

18:34

made your payment .

18:35

Yeah , yeah , it's as easy as that right yeah , 100%

18:37

Nice Beautiful .

18:39

Now you know , with

18:41

all the benefits

18:43

, you know , that clubs can have , players

18:46

can have , parents can have and the federations , right

18:48

, let's look at Lau

18:50

. I think we talked about Lau with

18:52

you , working with them , and I

18:55

think we've got to give a shout out to

18:57

Sundram , who is the technical director of Lau

18:59

, our own Sundram Muti , from

19:01

Singapore , as well as Mr Herman , correct

19:04

, you know , he is the head of coach

19:06

education , correct , in Lau , and

19:08

they are doing a great job there , 100%

19:10

, absolutely brilliant job . So shout out to you

19:12

guys if you're listening and you're watching this , herman

19:15

and Sundar . But let's talk about Laob

19:17

. What is the tie-up with them ?

19:21

So I've been in touch with Coach Herman when he was in Singapore

19:23

, yeah , and as he got

19:25

appointed as the head of coach education for LFF

19:28

, we had a chat and

19:30

it was just a casual chat , as we most

19:33

often have , and he's like , look , how could Coach

19:35

Hub potentially help Laos football

19:37

? And that's when

19:39

I said

19:42

, look , let's get on a call and we can demo

19:44

what we could do . He

19:46

got Coach Sundaram on the call as well

19:48

. We demoed the platform and showed

19:50

him the potential benefits of the platform and how

19:52

it could help football , not

19:54

only within the federation but for the whole

19:56

country . And

19:59

very proud to say that , if I'm not mistaken

20:01

, it was within 36 to 48 hours

20:03

Sundaram called

20:05

me and said look , let's do it and

20:08

let's implement Coach Hub within

20:11

LFF . So

20:13

the tie up is we are working with

20:16

the federation and the federation

20:18

has academies , youth development academies

20:20

, so Coach Hub is being used within that and

20:23

within a few other clubs playing in the Laos

20:26

football youth league as well .

20:28

So it's

20:30

wonderful , isn't it , that they are actually

20:33

using Coach Hub . So

20:35

does it trickle down to the clubs in

20:37

Laos ? Every club , every academy how does this

20:39

work ? Or every club ? Sites only ?

20:41

right . So what happened was ? we took it in phases

20:44

because it's

20:46

a big project and

20:48

, to be honest , I was a bit worried when it was Laos

20:51

as well , because , look , english is not their

20:53

main language , but

20:55

they say sports is a universal

20:57

voice . So that was really apparent

21:00

in our project . Phase one

21:02

kicked off with the Lao

21:04

football their own youth development centers

21:06

. So we started off phase one in February with

21:09

the they call it the Champi Champa Academy

21:11

in Vientiane , which is the capital of Laos . We

21:14

started off with about 150 players

21:16

on platform and about 20 to

21:18

30 coaches , if I'm not mistaken . So

21:21

that was phase one . Phase two to answer your question

21:24

was yes , clubs in Laos are using us as

21:26

well , but it's

21:28

only the clubs at the moment that are playing in

21:30

the Laos Youth League , very similar to

21:32

the SYL . So all of those

21:34

clubs are using coach hub , right

21:37

, uh , as part of this project , nice

21:39

, um , fast

21:41

forward , um , I think six months

21:43

or seven months now since we launched , okay , uh

21:46

, we have over 1500

21:48

players on platform in four provinces

21:50

, okay , so they have implemented it

21:52

to quite some remote provinces in

21:54

Laos as well .

21:55

Nice , nice Okay .

21:56

We have over 500 coaches on platform

21:58

. So at any time that

22:01

Coach Sundaram or anyone

22:03

in the the federation want to

22:05

see how many coaches do I have with

22:07

you know ? A licensors , b licensors

22:09

, how ? When

22:14

is their license up for renewal or whatever ? Within a click of a button , they have all that information . Wow

22:16

, and and and . We are also using it

22:19

within the Lao Youth League

22:21

as well so actually , you know what .

22:23

It's not only about the players , it's about

22:25

the coaches as well , information about the , the

22:27

coaches . You know you can use this

22:30

platform to actually track the

22:32

coaches movement as well . You know for sure

22:34

, and like you said , you just said it , the

22:37

licenses that they have , you know they can update

22:39

it . It's like kind of like an NROC kind

22:41

of thing . You know in Singapore

22:43

. It's excellent . Just

22:45

before we talk about Lao a bit right

22:48

, you spoke about just now

22:50

the Garuda Club , correct ? Which

22:52

is so called the basic ones . So

22:54

what can a club or academy with

22:56

the basic level of you know

22:59

, subscription to Coach Hub ? What

23:01

can they have or what kind of information

23:03

can they get ?

23:04

so all the information that any other club has , because

23:07

actually , again , one of the promises

23:10

that we made when we set up Coach Hub on

23:12

a very serious note is we don't want anyone to get

23:14

left behind . Okay . Right and

23:16

also one of the reasons was we are looking

23:18

at , you know , kind of democratizing

23:21

technology within the sport

23:23

. Right Again

23:25

, if you look at , you know , garuda Lions , like I said

23:27

, as an example , these kids would

23:30

never be known by the

23:32

federation because they are what you call kampung

23:34

boys , tucked away in a small

23:36

village . Nobody knows about them . So

23:39

now , because of Coach Hub , there is a potential

23:41

for even one of the brilliant

23:44

kids who comes from very wayward

23:46

background or far

23:48

away place to be noticed and we don't know how

23:50

many kids have slipped through the nets because

23:52

the lack of that data .

23:53

So they use basically

23:55

all the features that coach hub has the

23:57

basic information , they can track the player statistics

24:00

, everything , but obviously possibly not

24:02

the variables , because that that adds on

24:04

to the cost , of course , of course now

24:06

, this is the question for you , right , and I

24:09

I've been listening to you for about what 20

24:11

, 20 , 20 odd minutes , you know talking

24:13

about this to me , to me , if

24:16

, if you want to start off , you know , basically

24:18

, let's not talk about the professional clubs and all

24:20

. We just talk about the grassroots and and whatever

24:23

. It's kind of a no-brainer , you

24:25

know , no-brainer , but we'll talk about

24:27

the cost later on . Let's

24:30

talk about the syL , right ? I

24:33

feel , in my opinion , why not

24:35

? You know the Singapore Youth League , which

24:39

started this year . I don't have the numbers

24:41

in terms of the number of academies that are taking

24:44

part . It's huge , by the way . Anyway

24:46

, it's different age groups , the number

24:48

of players , it's immense , it's

24:50

massive . It's just like the JSSL . Anyway , it's

24:52

similar . I'd

24:56

say I would go for it , right ? What can you so

24:59

you can actually do this for the SYL as well

25:01

?

25:01

We could , we could .

25:02

We could do it , yeah for sure , and it

25:05

will be like at the fingertips

25:07

of the players . Parents coaches

25:10

and even the federation 100%

25:13

if they have . You have what ?

25:15

and also talking about SYL . I

25:18

mean Biharke did something brilliant , which is the club

25:20

accreditation . So the clubs are

25:22

accredited from , not to second level , 1

25:24

, 2 and 3 and then

25:26

based on that you know the SYL was structured we

25:29

could help even in the club accreditations , because

25:32

we kind of templatize everything

25:34

. Okay , because as part of the accreditation you

25:36

need to give a list of your coaches , the licenses

25:38

that the coaches have . Okay , you

25:40

know , list of your players , right , facilities

25:44

and everything . So that's why I think Coach

25:46

Hub could potentially help as well , because

25:48

we have all that information and we standardize

25:50

that information where the federation could use

25:53

that , yeah , in a standard

25:55

format , I guess .

25:56

It's beautiful . I

26:03

just want to ask you this before I start talking about the cost of this , right ? Anyway

26:05

, I know , if you're watching these coaches and academies

26:07

, you want to know that , you know . And this

26:10

is just like a marketing platform , right , but

26:12

never mind , it's okay . I just want to ask you this , right

26:14

, what is the difference between you

26:16

guys and , say , catapult

26:19

? Because

26:23

I've spoken to Benoit and he is great as well , and I just do have the feeling that

26:25

he's going for the

26:27

bigger elite federations , even

26:30

clubs . Obviously , you know , but

26:32

what are the differences , you know , between , say

26:35

, catapult and you guys ?

26:37

So Catapult gets classified as a wearable

26:39

devices , right . It's

26:41

the sports vest . So I

26:44

don't see the likes of Catapult Beyond

26:47

Pulse Sports Radar as competitors

26:49

. I guess we complement

26:51

each other Because what we do is we are a

26:53

data aggregation platform , which

26:56

we call it platform or wearable

26:58

agnostic so we can integrate with any

27:01

wearables out there and we

27:03

consolidate that data . But

27:05

at the same time , we do other things

27:07

. Like I said , club operations , like attendance taking

27:09

, player statistics , the

27:12

IAP , you know

27:14

, injuries , all

27:16

of that . So , with the likes

27:18

of Catapult and all the wearables out there

27:20

, I think we complement each other because

27:23

there's so much we could offer the clubs currently

27:25

using them . Beautiful . And they

27:27

could offer all their technology

27:29

and the wearable technology and the data to the clubs

27:32

using us . Nice . So I see it as a perfect

27:34

feature , brilliant , nice . So I see it as a perfect feature . Brilliant .

27:37

Any other people doing this at the moment here in

27:39

Singapore ?

27:39

No , in

27:41

Singapore , not that I have heard of

27:44

Right , but , you know , in

27:46

the rest of the world there are platforms

27:48

doing similar

27:51

things , but again , when you look at a competition Sashi

27:54

I think most of the platforms are multi-sports

27:56

ah , yes , if you look at there are massive

27:59

companies out there that does 10-15

28:02

different sports , right , but this is where we

28:04

are unique , because we are football , and football

28:06

only okay and we bring anything

28:08

and everything with regards to football right , so we

28:10

are specialised in that . So

28:12

that's why I guess it's our value proposition .

28:16

Spoken like a true football dad Wonderful .

28:18

Now how many countries have you guys

28:20

reached ? We are currently in 14

28:23

countries . Okay , and

28:25

again , sashi very proud

28:28

to say that we have not spent much

28:30

marketing dollars to get into those countries

28:32

, because we are still a startup , spent much marketing

28:34

dollars to get into those countries and because we are still a startup

28:36

, we are currently in the phase of raising our

28:38

seed funds . So all this traction that we have

28:40

currently got is by word of mouth and references

28:43

, so happy

28:46

about the growth Nice nice .

28:47

And you , Koshyap

28:49

, was the winner of something . Tell us about it .

28:53

Yeah , we were the winners of

28:55

the Sports Singapore's

28:57

innovation grant they call it

28:59

the InnoGrant for last year , nice . So we were one of

29:01

the companies that won that grant . Okay

29:03

, and it's with that grant that we built

29:05

the scouting platform that would help federations

29:08

and academies Beautiful .

29:10

Well done and congratulations , my friend . Thank

29:12

you , Wonderful . Well done and congratulations , my friend , Thank you , Thank you . I

29:15

want to ask you this right Obviously , you

29:17

go out there and you try to sell the

29:20

product , the service , and what have

29:22

you right ? What kind

29:25

of resistance have you faced so far and why

29:27

? What is the main ? Probably , if

29:29

I'm an academy , why wouldn't I take you From

29:32

your experience reaching out to them ?

29:34

So there is resistance , again , like I , from your experience reaching out

29:36

to them . So so that is resistant . Yeah , again , like I said , sashi , this is

29:38

, this is something new . Yeah , because

29:40

I mean , again , we are looking at the demographic

29:42

of clubs , we are going into , right , grassroot academies

29:45

. Tech is new and

29:47

clubs are , and

29:49

humans , by nature , we

29:52

don't like change , so

29:55

it's , I guess the fear of the

29:57

unknown is where

29:59

we see that the resistance comes from . Right

30:01

, excuse me . And I think

30:03

that's where we say look , we call them

30:05

for a demo , we demo the platform

30:07

. And when they find out that , hey

30:09

, hold on a minute . Actually our work

30:12

is much easier with this

30:14

platform , rather than working on three , four different platforms

30:16

on a piece of paper , you know , storing data here

30:18

, there , everywhere . That's when they kind

30:21

of warm up and say , okay , look , it looks

30:23

like Coach Hub is going to make my life

30:25

easier .

30:27

Actually , you know what's the best thing to me

30:29

, at least from a

30:32

layman it's so immediate

30:34

, it's on the phone , it's

30:36

there , and that's what we are doing anyway , right Every

30:39

day on the phone Exactly Almost 24 hours

30:41

a day . So that's one of the main

30:44

things right Now

30:46

, tariq , let's talk about

30:48

. We talk about resistance .

30:51

Is course one of the resistance from maybe

30:54

an academy , would you say yes , yes , it

30:57

is a resistance again for the , let's

31:00

call it the lower tier academies , more of the

31:02

you know , the proper grassroots , the non-profits

31:04

Cost does come

31:06

into play . Right . But again , that's why I said

31:08

, sashi , that what we do is we tailor

31:11

, make our package to

31:13

suit their needs . And

31:15

obviously there is a base price but

31:22

we try to do anything and everything to make sure that they don't get left behind and

31:24

that they can also enjoy the benefits of our platform .

31:26

Is this a yearly subscription kind of thing ?

31:28

Yes , it's basically a monthly

31:30

subscription charged to the club

31:32

based on the number of players that the club has . So we club based

31:34

on the number of players that the club has . So we only

31:36

charge by the number of players that the

31:39

club has . The parents get their

31:41

access for free , and so do the coaches

31:43

.

31:44

So it's paid by ? Yeah , okay , it's paid by the club

31:46

, so it's more of a business-to-business

31:48

model .

31:49

Right , right .

31:49

So you know any last

31:51

words from you , tariq . So you know any last words from you

31:53

, tarek . You

32:01

know , I think , to me at least I try it because I think it's a wonderful thing to

32:03

have , especially for parents . I think parents , if you're listening and you're

32:05

watching this as well , I think it's a wonderful platform to have

32:07

you know , to actually know what's going on with

32:09

your son , with your daughter , for example

32:11

, and you know so any last words

32:14

if you want to say anything to you . Know parents

32:16

and academies as well .

32:18

Yeah , just join us , you know , just join us

32:20

, let's work something out and

32:23

at the end of the day , it's all about the players and

32:25

helping them to go to the next level . So

32:27

that's one of the promises that Coach Hub has made

32:29

made to kind of help the players as

32:32

well . Yeah . And yeah , would

32:34

be more than happy to have a chat with anyone who

32:36

is interested and yeah , that's about

32:38

it Moving forward any plans like to expand

32:42

further ? Yes , yes , we have big

32:44

plans , so Indonesia is in

32:47

the pipeline as well

32:49

. I just got back from Jakarta

32:51

and we just signed the MOU with

32:53

the females female women's association . I just

32:55

got back from Jakarta and we just signed the MOU with the Females

32:57

Football Association of Indonesia .

33:00

That's a huge market as well . Right , the women's football ? Oh

33:02

, absolutely .

33:03

Women's football is massive , and

33:05

so we are looking at plans

33:07

to expand within the region . Of

33:09

course we'd love to work with more federations , because

33:12

I think that's where the potential could be truly

33:14

seen and that's where we could , you know , kind of go

33:17

into the country as a whole . But

33:19

yeah , within the region there's plans to expand

33:22

over the next year or so .

33:23

Nice , tariq . Thanks for

33:25

being here , thank you , sasheed , to you know

33:27

to actually explain , and thanks for

33:29

being patient as well . You know , because

33:36

I think listeners would want to hear how this goes out , how

33:38

it works specifically , and federations as well , how it works

33:40

for them scouting network

33:42

as well . I think it's brilliant to

33:44

have a record of players

33:47

for the federation to take a look

33:49

at . I wish you all the best going

33:51

forward and I hope you secure

33:54

more deals , because I think it's a great platform . This

33:58

has been the latest episode of

34:00

the Silver Fox Hustle podcast

34:02

, the football episode . It was all about

34:04

technology and , obviously , with

34:06

Coach Hub . Till the next episode

34:08

, we see you again , cheers , Bye .