Data Doesn't Lie: How Almere City FC's Chiel Dekker Flipped the Negotiating Table

For 25 years, Chiel Dekker sat on one side of the negotiating table. As a football agent, he'd walk into a club and ask how his player was developing, and take the answer largely on faith. "He played well, so I want more salary". That was the script, and clubs rarely had the evidence to counter it. Now Dekker sits on the other side of that table, at Almere City FC, and he's spent the past year making sure the evidence exists.

From agent to Technical Director

Chiel Dekker joined Almere City FC as Technical Manager a year ago, after a quarter-century as a football agent, a career that means he's known the club for around ten years and guided many players through it. When general director John Best asked him to step into the TD role, it was that agent’s eye view, plus deep experience in transfers and contract management, that he brought with him. Internally, he's responsible for player guidance, and it was there, sitting down with players, that the idea for a single digital overview first took shape.

The question he could never answer as an agent

Dekker's instinct for data came straight from the frustrations of his old job. As an agent, he'd get a call: "I don't see my player on the bench, what's going on?" and have no answer. Now, on the club side, he found himself with the same blind spots from the other direction: a player missing from training, and a walk down the corridor to the physios to find out why. A missed media event flagged by the comms team. A booking that might trigger a suspension. The information existed, but it was scattered across offices and people, and nobody had it all in one place.

Arming yourself with information

So he set out to build that place. His guiding belief is blunt: to win in this profession, you arm yourself with as much information as possible. With ClubOS, he now has an overview where, in his words, he has everything at his disposal: how a player performed this season, mentally and physically, matches, goals, and what's happening off the pitch. It's the kind of single-pane view he says he's never seen at another club in the Netherlands. "It's fairly unique, I think — I don't know a club that has this."

Turning data into leverage

This is where Dekker gets animated, because it changes the negotiation itself. When an agent argues a player deserves a raise on the strength of a good season, the club can now respond with a full performance picture, and it cuts both ways. "He has a performance record. Physically he's in poor shape, so that's a thousand euros off. Or we don't extend his contract." The point isn't to lowball; it's that every position is now well-founded. The conversation runs on evidence, not assertion.

Where AI comes in

Dekker's excitement really took off when he saw how ve2ventures could pair that data with AI. He's careful with the framing: the AI isn’t there to predict, but to help the club value a player based on performance data the club has collected itself, whether for a contract, a salary, or a transfer fee. The vision is a club that can sit across from any agent and say: here's our complete data, and this is how we value our players. "Data doesn't lie." For Dekker, that's a fundamentally stronger place to negotiate from.

Building it with the ClubOS team

Ask about the collaboration, and Dekker gives credit quickly. He describes working with Sven [Stroomberg] and the team as highly professional, people who understood exactly what he meant, which mattered because he could picture what he wanted without always knowing how to build it. What impressed him was their grasp of the football side: the logic of scouting, which platforms exist, what needed to be implemented to turn his intent into something real. "They put it into words perfectly, both of them, really impressive."

The bigger picture

Dekker thinks a tool like this will shake up how the wider football world operates, and he links that directly to the kind of club Almere City is. It's the same headstrong, ambitious streak in the search for new ways of thinking and working that makes the club willing to try something no one else has. His prediction: agents will start walking in differently, knowing they have to come prepared. Because once both sides of the table have the data, preparation is the only edge left.

For all the conviction, Dekker frames himself as still at the starting line, genuinely curious, itching to see how it performs in daily use as colleagues come on board. Watching the presentation and seeing the team engage with it, he's convinced of one thing. "I really think we have something beautiful in our hands."

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Thank you to our partners at Almere City FC for sharing these insights with us.

You can watch the interview on YouTube.