Project Snapshot

This project required building a robust process and tooling to determine player eligibility to represent specific countries (heritage-based eligibility) by auditing public records and enriching an existing dataset. Key deliverables included:

• Priority focus on a list of high-priority countries (Cook Islands, Anguilla, Singapore, New Zealand, Nauru, Romania, Canada, Latvia, Antigua).
• Designing and improving scripts to expand an existing dataset (35,000 players pulled in Feb 2024) so it covers all clubs and squads across many countries and levels.
• Implementing a Phase 1 methodology that combines automated scraping, smart enrichment and a human-led full audit to confirm heritage claims.

Why CnEL India Is the Ideal Partner

1. Proven Data Engineering Experience

   CnEL India has deep experience building and improving large-scale data pipelines. We will take the prior script and expand it to capture richer player attributes, club coverage and multi-level squads (senior & youth; male & female) while ensuring maintainability and reproducibility.

2. Domain-Specific Research & Audit Rigor

   Heritage identification requires careful, ethical research across many record types. Our approach blends automated discovery with manual validation: names, birthplaces, family records, social media signals and published interviews are systematically checked and audited.

3. Targeted Country Prioritisation

   We design workflows that mirror client priorities. The project’s priority sequence (Cook Islands → Anguilla → Singapore → New Zealand → Nauru → Romania → Canada → Latvia → Antigua) is embedded in the collection, enrichment and human-audit queues so the highest-value countries are processed first.

4. Comprehensive Source Strategy

   We combine specialised genealogical/name-frequency sources (e.g., Forebears), sports databases (FBref club pages for expanded club coverage), government and civil registries where available, social media signals (flags in bios, followed pages/groups), and general web-search results (interviews, biographies, news articles).

5. Respect for Privacy and Public Data Boundaries

   All research is restricted to publicly available information and performed with operational safeguards and documented provenance for every eligibility claim. We capture source links, search trails and audit notes for full transparency.

6. Scalable, Reproducible Scripts

   We will improve and modularise the existing script so it:

   • Scales across the large list of countries and clubs (full country list provided via FBref references).
   • Is configurable for different squad levels and genders.
   • Emits structured outputs (player candidate rows + provenance + confidence scores) ready for downstream review and integration.

7. Experienced Team & Clear Delivery Process

   CnEL India combines data engineers, sports-research analysts and QA/audit specialists. We use sprint-based delivery, with frequent demos and an auditable handover of datasets and scripts.

Methodology — Phase 1 (Detailed)

Phase 1 focuses on discovery and high-confidence heritage identification using the following steps:

1. Ingest & Normalize Existing Data — import the 35,000-player dataset, normalise names and standardise birth/place fields.
2. Automated Enrichment — enrich each player with automated lookups:
   • Name frequency & distribution: use Forebears to suggest likely country associations from first/last names.
   • Birth data checks: cross-match place-of-birth with civil records and regional registries where available.
   • Club coverage: expand script to crawl FBref club pages and pull roster details for all listed countries.
3. Social Media & Web Search Clues — programmatic scans of public social profiles and Google searches to find flags, family mentions, interviews or bios that indicate heritage.
4. Family Records & Genealogy Trails — when a parent/grandparent is identified, search births, deaths and marriage records to confirm place-of-birth and eligibility.
5. Human Full Audit — every positive candidate flagged by automation is put through a manual audit that records evidence links, confidence level and any disambiguation notes.
6. Provenance & Reporting — final exports include source URLs, timestamped audit notes and a confidence score per eligibility claim.

Scope of Coverage (Country List & Sources)

Beyond the priority countries, the improved script and audit process will be designed to cover clubs and players across an expanded country list (examples include Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Latvia, New Zealand, Portugal, Romania, Spain, USA, Wales, and many others as provided in the project brief via FBref links).

Key sources to be used (programmatically and manually):

• Forebears.io — name frequency & origin signals.
• FBref — club rosters and player pages for broad club coverage.
• Public civil registries & genealogical indexes — births, deaths, marriages where accessible.
• Social media profiles — Instagram, Facebook (public bios, flags, followed pages/groups).
• Open web search — interviews, news articles, player bios and club histories.

Deliverables & Outputs

• Improved, fully-documented script (modular, configurable) that scales across the full country set and squad types.
• Enriched player dataset (structured rows) with evidence-backed eligibility flags and confidence scores.
• Audit trail for every flagged player: source URLs, audit notes, and final recommendation (eligible / not eligible / needs more info).
• Leader dashboard (spreadsheet or CSV + summary) showing progress by priority country and audit throughput.
• Handover documentation and runbook for future runs and maintenance.

Why This Approach Reduces Risk & Increases Trust

Combining automated enrichment with mandatory human audits prevents false positives from noisy web signals. Our provenance-first outputs provide transparent evidence for every claim — making the dataset defensible for selection committees, legal review or formal submission.

Favourable Client Review

“CnEL India delivered beyond our expectations. They took our initial script and dataset, expanded coverage across dozens of countries, and produced clear, evidence-backed eligibility recommendations. Their methodical audits and transparent provenance made decision-making fast and defensible. The team communicated clearly, adapted quickly to new country priorities and always documented their work — we couldn’t have asked for a better partner on this complex project.”

Next Steps (Suggested Engagement)

1. Kickoff workshop to align on priority countries sequencing, source access and data-security expectations.
2. Deliver Phase 1 prototype run (sample of priority countries) and review audit outputs with the client.
3. Iterate on confidence thresholds, expand to full country list and hand over scripts & documentation.