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An African startup is building a digital scouting infrastructure to document and verify talent across grassroots football. By turning local performance into structured data, it aims to connect Africa’s vast player pool to the global transfer market.
Growing up in Ghana, Nana Yaw Oppong-Mensah spent countless afternoons playing football in neighbourhood matches where the level of competition was often surprisingly high. He remembers the players he grew up with as technically gifted, fast, and fiercely competitive. Yet years later, many had disappeared from the professional pathway.
“In Africa, there is a lot of talent in the communities,” Oppong-Mensah explained in an interview with Bird Story Agency.
“You see players who are incredibly good, but many of them never get the visibility they need to move forward.”
For Oppong-Mensah, the problem is not a shortage of ability. It is the absence of systems capable of capturing and documenting that talent.
“There is often this illusion that a scout arrives in Africa and suddenly discovers a player,” Oppong-Mensah said. “But usually that player has already been known in the community for years.”
Scouts rarely venture beyond major city pitches, and many local clubs lack structured systems to track and develop players. The result is a disconnect between the abundance of talent in African communities and the global networks that identify and recruit players.
That gap shaped Oppong-Mensah’s thinking. Through his work with grassroots football programmes under the Kaazi initiative, he repeatedly encountered players with exceptional speed, technique, and vision whose progress stalled due to limited exposure.
Kaazi is Oppong-Mensah’s grassroots football initiative focused on youth development, mentorship, and community tournaments across Africa.
“Kaazi works at the community level where the talent already exists,” Oppong-Mensah said. “Playerfinda builds the data layer that connects those players to the global game.”
Beyond visibility, another problem stood out at the start. Reliable data on African players was scarce, leaving international scouts and clubs with little more than anecdotal reports when evaluating talent. This led to the creation of Playerfinda, a digital scouting platform designed to connect African talent to the global football market. The platform aims to bridge the gap between local talent pools and international recruitment systems, making African players visible, verifiable, and easier for scouts to assess.
The timing is significant. According to the FIFA Global Transfer Report 2025, international transfer fees in men’s professional football reached a record US$13.08 billion in 2025, a 52.3% increase from 2024. A total of 24,558 international transfers were completed, involving 5,283 clubs worldwide.
Despite this expansion, the financial centre of global football remains concentrated elsewhere. Clubs in Europe’s UEFA confederation accounted for more than 80% of global transfer spending, led by teams in England, Germany, and Italy.
African clubs are active in the transfer system but capture a far smaller share of its value.
“Clubs in Africa still sell players at a fraction of their true value. Four or five years later, the same players are worth US$20 million in Europe,” Oppong-Mensah said. “The issue is not talent. It is visibility and accurate data.”
Playerfinda’s solution focuses on technology and data analytics. The platform allows local scouts, coaches, and clubs to upload detailed player profiles that include match statistics, physical metrics, skill assessments, and video highlights.
Each profile is verified and standardised, allowing scouts around the world to evaluate players using comparable information rather than fragmented reports.
“Many players remain invisible because their profiles are never seen outside their communities,” explained Harold Peter Ssebetta, co-founder of Playerfinda. “Our platform aggregates data, contextualises performance trends, and presents players in a professional format. Scouts can assess not only raw talent, but also readiness and consistency.”
The platform also incorporates AI-assisted video analysis. This technology breaks down aspects of a player’s game, such as movement, passing accuracy, defensive positioning, and tactical awareness. Clubs can identify prospects suited to particular playing systems, while players can track their own development over time.
Early examples suggest the approach can widen opportunities. Oppong-Mensah points to Jonathan Kalimina, a Zambian midfielder who progressed from local youth football to the Red Bull Salzburg academy in Austria. Structured data and performance tracking helped create a clearer pathway into professional scouting networks.
Another example is Nneka Okoye, a Nigerian forward whose Playerfinda profile attracted interest from clubs in Portugal and Belgium, eventually leading to her first professional contract.
“Playerfinda seeks to change the way scouts view African players,” Oppong-Mensah said. “It is no longer about stumbling upon hidden gems. It is about presenting players transparently and professionally.”
The broader economics of the transfer market reinforce the importance of that shift. FIFA data show that 56.5% of fee-based transfers in 2025 were valued below US$500,000. While these deals represented the majority of transactions, they accounted for only 2.9% of total transfer spending.
By contrast, just 3.8% of transfers with fees above US$20 million accounted for nearly half of global transfer expenditure. For African clubs, better data can strengthen negotiating power and help ensure players are transferred at valuations closer to their potential.
Beyond financial outcomes, the platform also focuses on player welfare. Playerfinda provides guidance on trial preparation, professional conduct, and career planning, areas where young players often lack support.
“The system reduces the risk of exploitative agents and unsafe trials,” Ssebetta said. “We want players to move internationally when they are ready, technically, physically, and mentally.”
The platform also generates insights that could benefit federations and youth development systems. By aggregating performance data across leagues and academies, football associations can monitor emerging talent and identify development gaps.
The global market for football talent continues to expand. In 2025, international transfers involved players from 186 nationalities. Brazilian players accounted for the most transfers, with 2,326, followed by Argentina, France, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom.
Within Africa’s CAF confederation, 1,974 transfers were recorded between clubs, reflecting growing activity within the region even as the largest financial flows remain concentrated in Europe.
Oppong-Mensah believes closing the information gap could help African football capture more value from its talent pipeline.
“Africa’s talent should be valued on the same terms as anywhere else,” he said. “Visibility, verified data, and proper development can help make that happen.”
Looking ahead, he hopes Playerfinda becomes a core infrastructure layer for the continent’s football ecosystem.
“Five years from now, we want Playerfinda to be the go-to platform for African talent,” Oppong-Mensah said. “Every player, every coach, and every club should have access to professional pathways into global football.”
Credit: Boniface Orucho, Bird Story Agency
