Scout (association football)

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A football scout attends football matches on the behalf of clubs to collect intelligence on young players. Typically, there are two types of scouts: player scouts and tactical scouts.

Player scouts or physical scouts evaluate the talent of footballers with a view to signing them on a professional contract for their employers. Some scouts focus on discovering promising young players and future stars while others are employed to run the rule on potential signings. Smaller clubs might only scout within their own country region, while larger and richer clubs can have extensive international scouting networks.^[1]

Tactical scouts assess the matches of upcoming opponents of the club and prepare dossiers for their teams' tactical preparations. Instead of identifying talent in these matches, the scout assesses the team and each individual player to identify the relative tactical threats and weaknesses in the opposition. Tactical scouts are typically full-time employees of clubs as their knowledge and findings are considered precious to clubs.

Relatively few football scouts are employed full-time, even in the largest professional clubs. By and large, their numbers are made up by talent scouts,^[2] the vast majority of which work part-time, and a club may hire several hundred of scouts.

Not all scouts are actually employed by football clubs. For instance, the creators of the Football Manager computer game have their own international network of scouts.