Football startup Prematch gets world champion Toni Kroos on board
Game results, performance statistics, market data: What was only available for footballers in the higher leagues for a long time does that Start-up Prematch for amateur athletes possible. Prematch collects all the news and game reports from district league clubs to regional league teams, registered players can create a profile themselves, select football clubs that they want to experience all updates and compare their play statistics. The concept has already convinced some successful investors – just is just Toni Kroos, world champion and six-time Champions League winnergot on at Prematch. How did the three founders of Lukas Röhle, Niklas Brackmann and Fiete Green from Cologne get their start-up idea?
The numbers of the German soccer bunds (DFB) According to 2.2 million players in the German amateur leagues. What can be followed on television are only the games of the approximately 1000 players in the first and second Bundesliga. Everything that happens in football below the third division does not seem interesting for the TV channels. For the start-up. And not only Toni Kroos believes that this works.
Kroos, Gnabry, Klopp: Football start-up Prematch has well-known investors
Since it was founded in 2021, Prematch has received « just more than six million euros » from investors, said Röhle. Investors include professional athletes Serge Gnabry from FC Bayern Munich and David Raum from RB Leipzig, but also Jürgen Klopp Invested in Prematch – and as the company announced on Wednesday, Toni Kroos.
Croos’ investment means money for Prematch – and synergies
If you use the app, you get news and results of up to 80,000 games – every weekend. In September 2024, the young company expanded to England, as Prematch announced. Since then, the player statistics have also been available there. According to their own information, the app in England landed in second place in the App Store. In Germany, 98 percent of all football teams use the platform, according to a message.
Nevertheless, the entry of Kroos is a milestone for the start-up. The exact amount of the investment was not announced, but in addition to the money, Kroos also brings relationships and synergies. The football star in Madrid, where he played at Real Madrid until 2024, founded the Toni Kroos Academy, where young footballers have the chance to get training and coaching. « We with the Toni Kroos Academy, which has been in Madrid since the summer, and Prematch have a similar basic idea and believe in taking the next step to professionalize amateur football: In the camps, the kids train with my time selected from my time as a youth player. To make it accessible at every level, ”says the press release. Kroos also often emphasizes that he sees great potential in youth football and also beyond the professional: « In amateur football, it is played with as much passion as in professional football. »
Project of the Kroos brothers: indoor football in the « Icon League »
Kroos ended his career after the European Championship last year. The 2014 world champion won a total of six times the Champions League and was four times national champion with Bayern Munich and with Real Madrid. After the end of his career, the 35-year-old had withdrawn something from the public. At the end of March it became known that the ex-international wants to work as a consultant of football professionals in the future. « I will stand by one or the other player on his sporty path with advice and pass on my experience, » said Kroos in a message from the Sports 360 GmbH agency, who looked after him for years during his career. Kroos gets into the agency as a partner. Most recently, the 35-year-old had also reappeared in the Icon League initiated.
Kroos even competed with his brother Felix himself at the indoor kick series. There is criticism of the existing amateur associations from representatives of the existing amateur associations because talented players migrate there. Felix Kroos sees that in an interview with the Augsburger General different: « We give you a platform that you do not have in your amateur leagues and will never have. Ideally, that can also be combined », after all, the games would take place on other days. There should be space for all formats on a digital football platform. (AZ)
