Innovation in Professional Football: A Comprehensive Research Study

What innovations are truly making the difference on the pitch? We're conducting the first comprehensive study across Europe's top five leagues, gathering insights from football experts, academies, associations, and coaches to identify the innovations that are changing how teams win. Join leading football professionals in shaping this groundbreaking research.

✨ Takes just 2 minutes — answer one strategic question and receive the complete findings

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The Study

This research investigates the central hypothesis that innovations originating beyond the traditional domains of nutrition, physical conditioning, and sports pedagogy remain largely untapped in professional football. To test this proposition, we systematically collect comprehensive data across all operational dimensions of elite football organizations.

While self-report methodologies inherently introduce certain limitations and potential biases, they constitute an essential and foundational approach for exploring this phenomenon and identifying latent performance optimization opportunities within professional football.

Participate

As participants you get the full study and its results for free sent to your inbox. Any question you might have about it our head researcher will be happy to accommodate.

The Key Research Question

By innovation we mean something you newly introduced with the intent to improve the performance of the team on the field to win.

By difference we mean winning more, by pitch we mean the team playing successful football

The Second Key Research Question

Your Information

Ideally the response comes from the Coach staff or managing director. Please state which role the answer originated from

Your input will always be treated with confidentiality. It will never be publicly published or made accessible to anyone other than the core research team. All study results are cumulative and anonymized.

Study Roadmap

Oct 2025
Gathering Data
Nov 2025
Analysis and Write Up
Dec 2025
Peer Review
Jan 2026
Publication

Scientific Peer Review

The research gets submitted for scientific peer review to:

European Management Quarterly
Management Science
Review of Managerial Science
Journal of Sport Management

Distribution Network

The study results will be shared with leading football associations and top sports media outlets across Europe to ensure maximum impact and reach within the football community.

Football Associations

Premier League
Bundesliga
La Liga
Serie A
Ligue 1
FIFA

Media

FourFourTwo
World Soccer
Kicker
L'Équipe
Marca
Gazzetta

Innovation as a Career

Benedikt works his entire career on innovation and team excellence. He is working on a system that uses innovation in a large variety of contexts for the benefit of football success. His hypotheses, argument and relevant research will eventually be published as a book early in 2026.

Head Researcher

Benedikt Girz

Benedikt Girz

Head Researcher

LinkedIn

Get in touch

If you have questions about this study, get in touch.