Strikerz Inc. prepares for Ultimate Football League launch in 2023

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Feature image credit: Bayer 04 Leverkusen

The number of video-gamers has accelerated in growth each year, with market research estimating a total of 3.09 billion playing across multiple consoles and devices.

During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw participation in video-gaming reach an all time high. Statista, a highly trusted analytics company, gave insight into how gamers were behaving inside their digital gaming communities. They discovered that six in every ten gamers were playing online multi-player games more frequently, and that gamer participation multiplied rapidly.

The appetite for video games has created a market where gaming developers are focusing on connecting with gamers across multiple consoles and devices. Statista also found that approximately 227 million people in the United States play video games one to a few hours per week – mind boggling numbers for a country that is estimated to have around 330 million residents.

Understanding just how big the video gaming community is, we can take a closer look at Strikerz Inc. – and how they plan to become the number one football video game in the world with their Ultimate Football League (UFL) franchise.

Who is Strikerz Inc?

Strikerz Inc. is a video game-creating collective and an international gaming brand launched in 2016 by a handful of people involved with online football. Currently, there are 200+ employees located in over five regional offices in various locations across Europe. Strikerz Inc. is the force behind the UFL, the ongoing online football video-game revolution. With the company’s employees being avid football fans, it aims to offer its players an unprecedented gaming experience available on all major platforms.

Tell me more about the UFL game:

The UFL game is a free-to-play football game that focuses on online gameplay as its main priority. For those new to the gaming world, free-to-play means that most aspects of the game can be played without the gamer incurring any charges. This is an important feature as several games online let users pay money in order to gain a competitive advantage whilst playing games. The free-to-play model presents a more level playing field amongst online gamers, therefore adapting the ‘free-to-play, fair-to-play slogan’.

The gameplay has only been released in small snippets for fans to see, but early signs suggest that the game is going to be a major player amongst football video-games. The attention to detail to the finer aesthetics is a sight to behold. Strikerz Inc. has gone above and beyond to ensure that each team’s home stadium and supporters are replicated accurately. For example, you will find West Ham’s iconic home ground, the London Stadium, accurately portrayed to replicate a West Ham game day. The exact lighting gantry specifications and side-line visuals, such as the bubble machines, are truly represented creating a lifelike playing experience.

UFL was due to be released earlier this year (2022), but in August, Strikerz Inc. CEO Eugene Nashilov announced that the game’s release date will be pushed back to 2023.

“We at Strikerz Inc. have always set a very high bar for ourselves, both inside and outside the studio. Our goal now, as it was then, is nothing less than the delivery of a triple-A quality, reactive, realistic football simulator featuring top-of-the-line graphics and gameplay,” he said in a statement.

There is no doubt that the UFL creators are taking their time fine-tuning the game before releasing it worldwide on multiple platforms. UFL will be available across PlayStation, Xbox, and the popular PC – a platform that 63 per cent of gaming developers have focused their attention on.

The Strikerz Inc. team have been working hard on the UFL project since 2016, securing important licences along the way. FIFPro is a worldwide organisation representing footballers who currently have over 65,000 professional players on their books. FIFPro, along with sports analytics company, InStat, will provide up to date analytics on players to support the UFL game.

In preparation for the 2023 release, Strikerz Inc. has promised engagement and transparency with fans and the gaming community. They have released UFL Journey, a show broken down into episodes giving fans a behind the scenes look at how the game was made and previews of what fans can look forward to. The episodes can be found on the UFL website or on YouTube. They also host Q&A sessions and regularly update fans on any new developments surrounding the game.

How is Strikerz Inc. preparing for the 2023 UFL release?

The company has wasted no time promoting the game with Strikerz Inc. – having recently signed a partnership with Bundesliga powerhouse, Bayer Leverkusen. Commenting on the new deal. Nashilov said via press release: “The history of Bayer 04 shows you should never give up while there’s still a chance. They won the European trophy because they played to the final whistle. That’s a trait that we, at Strikerz Inc., have always admired. And we are happy to welcome Bayer 04 into the UFL family.”

The Leverkusen partnership adds to the already impressive list of clubs partnering with Strikerz Inc. Over the past year, the gaming developers have managed to secure partnerships with Borussia Monchengladbach, AS Monaco, and English Premier League side West Ham United. As for the players, UFL has already secured several football superstars to become ambassadors of the game. Arguably the greatest player of all time, Cristiano Ronaldo, has thrown his support behind the game becoming the face of the franchise. He joins Manchester City star, Kevin De Bruyne, Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino, and Belgian International, Romelu Lukaku, as faces of UFL.

The UFL game is due to be released at a time when football fans are pondering their next go-to football game. Currently, EA Sports’ FIFA franchise is the globally renowned football game, but it was announced it will be discontinued, with FIFA 2023 being the last instalment.

EA Sports confirmed that it failed to reach a new licensing agreement with FIFA and would turn its attention to an EA Sports FC game. This news opens the door for UFL to potentially take the reigns as the world’s number one footballing video game going forward.

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Tottenham modernises stadium technology with major IT overhaul

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Image credit: Yau Ming Low / Shutterstock.com

Tottenham Hotspur has completed a major upgrade of the digital infrastructure that underpins its stadium operations, highlighting the growing importance of technology away from the pitch.

The Premier League club has partnered with Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to modernise its IT environment, replacing legacy systems while introducing new networking, automation and connectivity capabilities across Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The project also reduced the club’s virtualisation licensing costs by more than 85 per cent following its migration from VMware to HPE Morpheus software.

While cost savings were one outcome, the wider objective was to simplify how the stadium’s technology is managed.

The upgrade brings networking, servers, storage and virtual infrastructure under a single operating platform. Tottenham is also introducing Wi-Fi 7 throughout the venue, supporting everything from digital ticketing and cashless payments to mobile services and high-density fan connectivity on event days.

The investment reflects the changing role of football stadiums.

Modern venues increasingly serve purposes beyond football. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium stages NFL games, concerts and other large-scale events throughout the year, placing increasing pressure on the technology that supports daily operations. Reliable digital infrastructure has become as important as physical infrastructure in delivering those experiences.

Across football, clubs are increasingly viewing technology as an operational asset rather than simply an IT requirement. Investments in automation, connectivity and cloud-based management can improve efficiency behind the scenes while enhancing the experience for supporters inside the stadium.

For Tottenham, the latest upgrade is another step in positioning its stadium as a multi-purpose entertainment venue. It also reflects a broader trend across elite sport, where digital infrastructure is becoming central to matchday operations, commercial activity and long-term venue management.

The Spreadsheet Is Dead: Majestri’s Fix for How Clubs Actually Assess Players

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If you’ve ever sat through a club’s end-of-season review, you’ll know the drill. A coach pulls out a folder of notes, someone half-remembers what a player was like back in Round 3 and a parent quietly wonders what they actually got for their rego fees beyond a team photo. Football club platform Majestri says it has a fix for that, and it’s built directly into its Player Assessment module.

Why clubs bother assessing players in the first place

According to Majestri, clubs run player assessments for one of three reasons – usually more than one at once. Some are chasing genuine development, using the data to lift the level across their high-performance squads. Others are after a fairer way to pick teams, putting every player on the same measurable scale so selection is based on evidence rather than a coach’s gut feel about who “looks the part.” And for clubs operating under a Football Australia or state federation licence, assessments at set intervals often aren’t optional – they’re a compliance requirement, with the paperwork to prove it when asked.

Whatever the motivation, Majestri’s pitch is the same: don’t let that assessment data die in a spreadsheet on someone’s laptop.

Build your own assessment, your way

There’s no one-size-fits-all template here. The Assessment Designer lets technical directors set their own criteria, sort them into whatever categories their coaching staff already use – think core skills, possession, defending, attacking – and decide what each point on the rating scale actually means. Crucially, every criterion also gets a comment field, because a bare number rarely tells the full story of a player’s development.

The Assessment Module Builder for an NPL Juniors assessment
The Assessment Module Builder, showing an NPL Juniors assessment with a 1-10 rating scale banded from under performing through to excelling and role-specific criteria grouped into core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

Build it once and it’s reusable every time that assessment cycle comes around, so every player and every coach – is working off the same yardstick.

Something for the parents to actually take home

One of the more relatable pain points Majestri is targeting: most families never see much tangible return from a season of fees beyond a team photo. Player Assessment addresses that with report cards – colour-coded against the same scale coaches used, grouped by category with averages calculated automatically, and delivered as a PDF or an interactive web page a parent can read without needing a coaching badge themselves.

A player report card for an under-15 player
A report card for an under-15 player, colour-coded from under performing to excelling, with a score for every criterion and a group average across core skills, possession, defending and attacking. Source: Majestri.

 

Turning the numbers into something useful

The real value, though, sits in what Majestri calls the Player Analysis Lab. This is where clubs can plot a player against their team-mates or an entire age group across two categories at once, spotting clusters and outliers at a glance. Every score gets read against the group average – so a “7” actually means something in context – and clubs can report at the broad category level or drill into individual fields underneath. The results can be filtered down and exported for selection meetings or grading purposes.

The Player Analysis Lab comparing players in an under-15 and under-16 squad
The Player Analysis Lab comparing seven players across under-15 and under-16 squads, with a scatter plot, a sortable table of scores against the player average, and controls for choosing which categories and fields to report on. Source: Majestri.

The admin side nobody enjoys, made easier

Beyond the flashy analytics, there’s a practical layer built for the volunteers actually running the process:

  • Sweep monitoring – a quick view of which assessments are done and which are still outstanding, organised into defined assessment periods so progress can be tracked against peers.
  • Individual development plans – every player gets a personalised plan, and clubs can group common improvement areas to run cross-team training sessions that lift the whole club rather than just one squad.
  • Access control – coaches and technical staff can only see assessments for the teams they’re responsible for, and completed assessments are only visible to people linked to that player’s registration.
“Hard numbers to draw on when you review coaching staff and curriculum – and something tangible for the players and parents who pay the fees.” – Majestri

 

The bigger picture

Majestri frames all of this as sitting on top of the club’s own data – assessment results live on each player’s profile inside the platform rather than in a spreadsheet that walks out the door when a technical director moves on. For committees, it also means hard numbers to lean on when reviewing coaching staff or curriculum, rather than relying on anecdote.

It’s a fairly clear read on where club administration software is heading: less about digitising paperwork for its own sake, and more about making the data clubs already collect actually work for player development, team selection and compliance  without adding to the workload of the volunteers who run the show.

For more information on Majestri’s Player Assessment module, visit majestri.com.au/player-assessment.

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