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Feature
- 5 hours ago
Relegated Bundesliga club to let AI mastermind transfers business
Tom Weber
- Updated: 18 Oct 2025 19:06 BST
- 4 min read
News
2. Bundesliga club VfL Bochum are looking to take a unique approach to the transfer market by partnering with an artificial intelligence service.
An iconic Bundesliga club, Bochum have fallen on tough times and are a club in turmoil. Relegated to the second division last season, the goal of immediately bouncing back couldn't be further out of reach.
Bochum languish in the relegation zone, having only picked up one win from their first eight games. The other seven games have all been lost, with only Magdeburg having endured a worse start to the season.
After sacking former DFB-Pokal winner Dieter Hecking, the fallen giants have now appointed ex-Man City player Uwe Rosler as their new head coach, while there is still uncertainty over the club's recruitment hierarchy.
Bochum have not yet found a new sporting director after failing to agree a deal with West Ham recruitment and analysis chief Max Hahn, whose wage at the Premier League club is said to be higher than Bochum's available budget.
Bochum to use AI for transfer
Former player Simon Zoller is expected to play a key role in the recruitment department, and somewhat bizarrely, so is artificial intelligence. It is not unusual for clubs to use AI - and some players are even employing it to negotiate contracts - but it could play more of an outsized role at Bochum than elsewhere.
BILD reports that the German outfit are set to partner with Plaier, a data provider that uses a self-developed AI. The company's mission statement is to "completely understand and decode football."
It is claimed that the subscription to the AI service will "cost in excess of €100,000 annually," while Plaier will also be entitled to bonus payments if the players its AI selected are sold at a profit. Team success will also be lucrative for the firm.
The idea to use AI to select transfer targets was put forward by deputy chairman Till Gronemeyer, the nephew of Bochum's most famous supporter, Herbert Gronemeyer, whose song 'Bochum' is the club's anthem.
"At Plaier, we understand the importance of making informed decisions when it comes to selecting players for your football team," the company's website states. "That's why we've developed, in a first step, a state-of-the-art scouting tool that can help you make the best choices possible."
Plaier encourages its customers to "get into the AI revolution." The company's "powerful AI prediction engine" is called "effectR," which is purported to be able to "unlock the full potential" of available data.
Time will tell if the "AI revolution" will be able to get Bochum out of their rut.
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