Dribl: Football’s passion project set to change the game

Dribl

Football can start to unite at the grassroots

David Mason has worked in elite football with Australian national teams at multiple FIFA World Cups. He now devotes his boundless energy into community football as CEO of the Manly Warringah Football Association.

According to Mason, digital competition management and administration is an area where the game in Australia can truly unite.

“The most important thing that our game can benefit from is one system that allows everyone to register and participate in football. This information would flow into a centralised competition management system,” he said.

“A platform of this nature allows all match day tasks to be performed effectively, referees to be paid and players to know the details of their matches and leagues. The same system can provide commercialisation opportunities for football associations and clubs. If all football stakeholders can get together and somehow pull that off, that would truly unite the sport.”

In 2016, Australian company Dribl had a vision to use technology to change grassroots football. By delivering efficiencies and digital revenue opportunities with their competition management and member registration platform, this has allowed clubs to lower the cost of participation and increase member and community engagement.

Football clubs traditionally have survived through community financial support and volunteers. Dribl’s staff live the football experience. They are now using that connection in the digital space to deliver innovation with technology – benefitting players, volunteers, officials, sponsors, clubs, communities, and regions.

The driving force behind Dribl’s digital tech-based approach according to CEO and co-founder Rob Georgievski, is to give all associations and clubs the right tools.

“For us it is about delivering a complete and unified football experience to grassroots football. Why should it just be the top flight leagues and clubs providing that experience? Why can’t we bring that same experience to community football.”

Dribl co-founders

Rob Georgievski has a son playing in the SAP development program in Sydney. Co-founder Chris Boulamatsis is a “B” license coach and is involved with grassroots football at Strathfield in Sydney’s inner west.

This engagement is the fundamental reason why Dribl will be successful, and backed by Ian Holmes – the CEO of the Canterbury & District Soccer Football Association.

“The people driving this at Dribl are people who play, coach, have kids playing and are supporters. These are people who are fully immersed in football, and this is such a critical element. These are football people building a football system for community football,” Holmes said.

“They continually look to make enhancements not just based on our feedback from clubs, but also from them being active participants in the game.”

Dribl has partnered up with football Federations and Associations to provide a complete competition management solution, including a member registration system. Georgievski outlines that their vision is for the football community at large to be connected through a centralised digital management hub.

“Every association that we have spoken to had struggled to run and manage their competitions. There was a significant gap between the tools and resources available to them and bringing a level of professionalism and standard at the grassroots level. We set out to build those tools and deliver those capabilities. I believe we have achieved that,” he said.

“Tasks that would have taken them weeks previously now take them a fraction of that time with our platform. It provides structure, flexibility and agility with significant time savings. We have engaged extensively with our partners, taken their needs on board and designed solutions to solve their specific football problems.”

Mason recalled the Manly Warringah Football Association moved to Dribl in the 2021 season.

“What Dribl is very good at is listening to problems and challenges, fixing them and making sure the system continually evolves and gets better. They understand what the users want and know why and what areas need to improve, because they are involved in the game and that makes a difference,” he said.

Ian Holmes believes Dribl provides the best and most efficient system for his members.

“Dribl has tweaked their system to deal with some of the elements that are unique to us. When it comes to presentation to the end users, their system is really good,” he said.

“We have implemented their competition management and member registration system, so we have everything on the one platform and this brings significant efficiencies. In the past the transfer of data from one system to another often had problems with it. We have gone from manual to fully digitised through Dribl. The transition has been very smooth.”

Dribl sees its platform as solving a core need of every football Association. The member registration system seamlessly integrates directly with the competition management platform, eliminating complexity and error for the grassroots game. The same platform allows a player, volunteer, coach, referee, official, sponsor, club, association and federation to input information to maximise collaboration and information flow.

Mason elaborated further: “The user experience for 97% of football are players wanting to register for the sport they love easily and effectively. That feeds into a competition management system that allows clubs and associations to manage players in teams and competitions. The players want draws to pop up on their phones with match details, have a great game of football with their friends and be able to see the other results in the league.”

The potential for clubs and associations to commercialise this space is also significant. It will provide an avenue to lower the cost of playing the game and improve facilities, coaching and equipment.

This can be achieved by tapping into the sizeable participant and supporter base which has traditionally been underutilised by Australian grassroots football.

“Dribl allows the clubs to use their system to better serve their sponsors. It’s a digital platform that communicates with every part of its community,” Holmes said.

This can expand to include team management & player welfare, community messaging, chat, social media sharing, sponsorship and supporter engagement.

The next generation of digital tools will also assist in the technical development of all participants. An artificial intelligence camera system using machine learning is being developed by Dribl which will serve as the cornerstone for its automated football analytics platform. This will provide highly accurate tracking and performance data, automated video analysis and provide an immersive football experience across the board.

“This system will generate data on players for the use of scouting purposes, tracking players on the pitch to assess their work rate and skills execution under match conditions. It will allow coaches to properly analyse matches. This system is really something to behold,” Holmes explained.

The aim is to give grassroots football every chance to successfully integrate into the digital sporting landscape, by making the technology affordable and accessible for everyone. Dribl plans to stay ahead of the technology curve in delivering on its goals.

Holmes has no doubt where Dribl is ultimately heading: “They will be a world leading provider of competition and player registration systems in the next few years, there is no question about that,” he said.

“2022 is our centenary season. As we enter our next century we want to be at the cutting edge of the use of technology in the game.”

Like most things in life, football works best when it’s driven by passion. Passion for the game is at the core of Dribl. Their expertise in technology and data has placed them at the forefront of a tech led transformation of the world’s biggest sport.

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Uplift Labs: Redefining movement analytics in sports

Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Uplift Labs was created by co-founders Sukemasa Kabayama, Jonathan Wills, and Rahul Rajan. Each brings years of experience in tech innovation, uniting their expertise to build a cutting-edge startup dedicated to improving human movement.

Mission

Uplift Labs is driven by a mission to enhance human movement performance across all aspects of life.

Their AI-powered technology delivers advanced analytics designed to optimise performance while reducing the risk of injury across sports, fitness, and daily activities.

With a strong focus on movement and health, Uplift places human interaction at the forefront of coaching and training, helping people move better in all areas of life.

Key Partnerships

Uplift Labs collaborates with a range of leading organisations to push the boundaries of movement technology, including:

LAFC

AWS Startups

Nvidia Inception Program

Driveline Baseball

Athletes Unlimited

Investment Profile

Uplift Labs is backed by a prestigious group of institutional and individual investors. This includes prominent professional athletes such as Seth and Callie Curry, David DeCastro, Eric Gagné, Marc Gasol, Andrew Luck, and Renee Montgomery, as well as celebrated Olympic medallists including Kosei Inoue, Kosuke Kitajima, and Yuki Ota.

With a unique combination of cutting-edge AI, strategic partnerships, and world-class support, Uplift Labs is poised to transform how movement is understood, trained, and optimised.

Solutions

The company’s solutions are split into three categories of Sports performance, Sports medicine and Sports media. This is Uplift’s vision on how to tackle these issues in sports.

Sports Performance

Gather accurate and reliable data for comprehensive movement analysis.

Track 28 key points to generate kinematics and movement-specific events and metrics across entire athletic movements.

Optimise your athletes’ movement performance.

Elevate your assessment of athletic movements and unlock athletes’ full potential by analysing functional movements using only iOS devices.

Make data and insights accessible and easy to understand.

Evaluate player movements in a variety of ways across your organisation, from detailed kinematic data to directional reporting and 3D visualisations.

Sports Medicine

Quantify movement health to improve baselines, boost performance, and reduce injury risk.

Establish baseline movement abilities to track improvements and identify potential risk factors.

Perform detailed movement assessments.

Evaluate players or patients and generate reports with valuable, actionable insights. Using iPhones or iPads, our solution reliably captures biomechanical and kinematic data in any environment.

Prioritise player health by minimising injury risks.

Maximise performance and reduce risks by collecting detailed movement data that highlights deficiencies and identifies opportunities for improvement.

Support rehabilitation and recovery with objective measurements.

Use individualised movement analyses, reports, and visualisations to develop informed return-to-play programming and rehabilitation plans. Provide precise Individual Patient reports to guide recovery.

Sports Media

Captivate fans with biomechanical data overlays during live games.

Boost fan engagement by presenting exciting content that overlays biomechanical data, offering a new perspective on elite athletic performance.

Deliver valuable insights in real-time.

Integrate Uplift with your media production pipeline to analyse player movement and provide instant, ready-to-use insights during live commentary or replays.

Enhance the fan experience with clear, engaging visuals.

Offer simple, engaging data on athlete performance and skills to help fans connect with the action. Provide fresh insights for commentary and graphics, helping fans better understand movement analysis in the context of their favourite sports.

Conclusion

As soccer continues to evolve, technology like Uplift Labs’ AI-powered movement analysis is becoming increasingly vital for the sport’s future.

By providing accurate, real-time data and actionable insights, Uplift empowers clubs, players, and medical staff to optimise performance, prevent injuries, and enhance player health.

The ability to track and analyse movement in such detail not only elevates athletic development but also opens new avenues for fan engagement and storytelling.

Making Football Fairer: Dreamstock DSFootball Platform

Player scouting is one of the most challenging and vitally important tasks a club has to manage, without fresh and skillful new players a club will struggle to compete with its peers.

However, scouting can take a significant amount of time, manpower and research, leaving clubs with less resources at a significant disadvantage.

Additionally, for young players aiming for a professional career in football it can be extremely difficult to get noticed, especially if they are unable to frequently travel to far away tryouts.

To bridge the gap, Japanese organisation Dreamstock aims to reshape traditional scouting procedures via technology.

Launched in 2017, Dreamstock operates one of the largest online player selection platforms in the world – DSFootball.

Via DSFootball, Dreamstock strive to achieve three goals on the path to make football fairer for upcoming talents:

  • Create connections between club and players.
  • Generate opportunities through technology and innovation.
  • Transform the scouting market with transparency

DSFootball Platform 

Available in two packages, DSFootball is a multifaceted platform designed to aid both clubs and players. The first package is designed for grassroots clubs and academy players, while the second is a premium version tailored for professional clubs and players.

Through the DSFootball app, players create a profile that details their physical attributes, location, position and footballing history. Additionally, they can upload video clips of their performances to entice clubs to contact them.

For clubs, the DSFootball platform allows them to search for the perfect players to fit their unique needs by filtering their searches.

The platform houses a vast and expansive youth database for players across the U13, U15, U17 and U20 age groups, presenting the aforementioned player profiles to clubs.

These profiles showcase the important player information scouts need to know, so they can determine if potential players are suitable for them or note. Most importantly, the profiles showcase valuable game footage and clips, allowing scouts and coaches to see the potential of players without travelling to see them in person.

Through the DSFootball platform, clubs can individually contact interesting players via their profiles, or they can launch scouting events and tryouts to assess players in person. Furthermore, DSFootball allows for direct contact to player representatives to foster important connections and conversations.

Via DSFootball, Dreamstock provides a way for clubs to access and scout players they normally never would have been able to under traditional methods, as it drastically reducing barriers for upcoming young players.

In providing each of these services, DSFootball acts as a one-stop-shop for clubs, significantly reducing the amount of hassle they are subjected to.

Global Impact 

Developing from its two headquarters in Brazil and Japan, Dreamstock has achieved significant success in its short lifespan via the DSFootball platform. With the company and its platform having grown active in over 36 countries, encompassing more than 200 clubs and 50 leagues.

Through their work, Dreamstock has fostered key partnerships with premier competitions such as the Bundesliga, Serie A, Eredivisie and even Australia’s very own A-League.

As a product, DSFootball has been revolutionary. With over one million registered players on DSFootball, Dreamstock has created a premier destination for clubs to select future stars from, connecting players to clubs at a faster and more expansive rate than ever before.

For players, DSFootball has proven to be an excellent way to develop personally and attract attention from clubs. Of the one million plus registered players on the DSFootball platform, more than 100,000 are active participants in selection.

There is no sign of Dreamstock slowing down either, attaining over two million website views each month, illustrating a continued desire for the platform.

For more information on Dreamstock and the DSFootball platform, click here.

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