Premier League clubs are to start using the database belonging to the computer game Football Manager to help identify and recruit new signings.

Sports Interactive, the creator of the best-selling game, will begin feeding its extensive information into Prozone Recruiter, an online analysis platform which many of the top clubs use to scout new talent.

Biographical, contractual and positional information compiled by SI over two decades will be incorporated into the Prozone tool, which provides player data and archived video footage of tens of thousands of players from across the world.

“Prozone Recruiter has been built to supplement the intuition of scouts and coaches by delivering detailed performance information on over 80,000 players worldwide,” says Prozone’s CEO Thomas Schmider. “The Sports Interactive database is a highly accurate and valuable resource that will further enhance the recruitment services that we provide. The integration of Sports Interactive data further establishes Recruiter as the most comprehensive recruitment and asset management platform available.”

Sports Interactive’s studio director Miles Jacobson said: “For years we’ve heard stories of real-life managers and scouts using our data to help with the recruitment process. From now on, it’s official…real managers around the world will be finding and comparing players using data and a search system that will be very familiar to players of Football Manager.

“The information gathered by our network of more than 1,300 scouts around the world, combined with Prozone’s amazing performance data, makes this an invaluable tool for any football club that takes player recruitment seriously.”