SkillCorner is proud to announce its support for the Reep Register, a free, open, public-domain identity register that matches IDs across 55 data providers, addressing the identity fragmentation issue that has long been a headache for data teams in professional football.

Matching player, team and match IDs across multiple data providers is a well-known problem. There has never been an independent central register in football, and challenges like providers spelling a club’s name differently, mismatched birthdates, and duplicate IDs have made matching across providers expensive and lossy. Providers also use different approaches to handling duplicates or retiring IDs, causing further confusion.

Reep solves that, and more, by giving every football entity (players, teams, competitions, seasons, matches, coaches, referees) one permanent Reep ID, then mapping every provider's unique ID for that same entity back to it. An entity enters the register when at least two genuinely independent sources agree on it, and every record retains context about how it got there and why. No proprietary information enters the register, and only aliases and descriptive attributes are collected. The register is free, public-domain, updated weekly, and available via download and an API.

The register already carries 1.8 million football entities, resolved from multiple well-known, independent sources. It is currently used in production by elite clubs and analytics platforms, and we at SkillCorner have also worked directly with it to stress-test our own identity data.

Rahul Keerthi, creator of the Reep Register:

“Hugo and the SkillCorner team did something most data companies avoid: they asked an outsider where their own data could be improved, then took the findings seriously and fixed it. Every football dataset sits on an identity layer, but identity is a data problem, not a football one. Collaboration is the most valuable thing anyone can do here, and it gets us closer to a world where football people spend more time on football things. Having SkillCorner, a team that shares this ambition, as our first data partner matters more than any number in the announcement. I’m excited to work with them, and with anyone who wants to change the way we work with football data

Data fragmentation is an issue the industry has long recognised but disconnected interests have made it difficult to find consensus on a solution. It is something we, at SkillCorner, have attempted to solve at various points, both with other providers and alongside the clubs we work with, and so we are delighted to see a free, open resource emerge that finally provides a workable solution.

Hugo Bordigoni, CEO and Co-founder of SkillCorner:

"Mapping identity between different sources is a long standing subject that all football teams face and lose time with. No single provider can solve it on its own and we're super grateful for Reep to take on this challenge and make such a fantastic job of it.”

Reep's approach aligns with our vision for the football data ecosystem, and by becoming its first data partner, we are reaffirming our commitment to interoperability in football and a more open analytics community.

If you work with football data, you can explore what the Reep Register can do for you here.