Do players have a right over their performance data that betting companies use to educate punters or online fantasy league put out to help gamers pick their teams?

While Virat Kohli doesn’t have ownership of his run-scoring wagon wheel or his head-to-head record against an opposition bowler but footballers in the UK are pushing the envelope and claiming their right over their numbers.

A group of current and former footballers – over 400 in number – are set to file a lawsuit over the use of their performance data. The main point of contention for the players – many of them from the Premier League – is that betting and gaming companies have not sought their consent. Together, they’ve signed up for ‘Project Red Card’ – a term coined to represent the lawsuit.

The project is handled by former Cardiff City manager Russell Slade’s company Global Sports Data and Technology Group (GSDT), in collaboration with ELIAS Partnership.

“The data in question is the performance data. It’s the sort of thing that lot of data companies are using to inform other companies – betting companies or gaming companies – to make odds or create games, and it’s different to image rights,” Richard Dutton, director of UK-based legal advisory firm ELIAS Partnership, tells The Indian Express.

To explain his point, Dutton takes cricket’s example. “Now let’s take Jofra Archer. We can say he uses the same run-up to bowl at 95 mph, 90, and even a slower ball at 75. Maybe you’ll notice that his fifth ball is usually the slower one. All of this data is personal performance – tracking data. Lots of companies are using that and helping better understand how many boundaries are going to be scored or how many wickets will be taken,” he says.

There is a fundamental difference between a viewer or spectator watching the game at a stadium or on television and collecting data, and it being compiled to be sold to help punters make informed decisions.

“There is nothing to stop you as an individual from making notes, doing your own research about a player. That’s absolutely fine. But it’s fundamentally different if you were to sell that data,” Dutton explains.

“When you collect that data, it’s potentially your hobby, which is fine. But when you start making money from that data, that’s where the issue lies. It’s a bit like you borrow someone’s car saying you need to go buy groceries, but then you use it as a taxi service and make money from it. It’s the same principle.”

Project Red Card’s argument falls under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has been formed by the European Union, and the Data Protection Act of 2018 in the United Kingdom.