CLUBS are worried players will be exposed to increased injury risk next pre-season following the AFL’s shock switch in GPS providers.

Teams could lose years worth of valuable tracking data after the AFL dumped long-time data supplier Catapult, in favour of a company it owns 49 per cent of, Champion Data.

All 18 clubs voted for Melbourne-based Catapult after a thorough review from four of football’s respected fitness bosses.

Teams rely heavily on player tracking data to help prevent injury and manage loads using GPS monitors stitched into player guernseys.

But the surprise switch means clubs will effectively have to start their athlete profiling from scratch next pre-season as the two systems are incompatible.

Senior team officials also expressed concern on Wednesday that the new proposal would mean clubs would not receive any in-game data about their players from next season, potentially setting clubs back a decade in player management and technology development.

“I’m not sure if it will allow real time (data) at all,” one top-ranking club official said.

Several senior football officials contacted by the Herald Sun said they remained hopeful the AFL would reconsider its decision to axe Catapult and were concerned by “the limitations” of the new solution.

Collingwood chief executive Gary Pert said the decision to contract a new provider would have serious ramifications for their pre-season programs.

“We are very concerned that our historical GPS data may not easily link with the new data supplier,” Pert said.

“At this late stage in the year this may affect our ability to prepare our load levels for the upcoming pre-season program.”

The Catapult data has helped guide clubs’ decisions on how to manage their players performance and injury-prevention by providing fitness officials with detail on their running distances, speed and velocity.

The Catapult technology could also be used to measure the force of collisions, giving new insight into potential player concussions.

In an email to clubs, AFL football operations manager Mark Evans said Champion Data would utilise partnerships with overseas based providers Zebra Technologies and STATSport over a new seven-year deal.

It would force clubs to replace all their existing equipment with a new system and attempt to save what data they can from years of player tracking.

The AFL wants to increase the amount of GPS data it broadcasts with its media rights holders in the new deal.

Zebra has broadcast data in the NFL since it struck an agreement with the US league last year.

The AFL would become the first sporting league in the world to partner with Zebra since then.

One leading fitness official said the Zebra system had been “highly dysfunctional” in its ability to broadcast data in real time on television.

Champion Data and Catapult both declined to comment.