A note in Brentford’s 2023-24 accounts published this week revealed that the club received a £3.23m tax credit last year, although the Guardian has been told that part of the payment was backdated for a claim made the previous year.
A data-led approach pioneered by the club’s owner, betting entrepreneur Matthew Benham, has transformed Brentford from a team in League One to an established Premier League side despite modest resources, and the club are now applying their successful recruitment principles to other areas.
Under the terms of the research and development (R&D) tax credit scheme, businesses can claim back 20% of the costs of a research project on the proviso that the results of the research are made widely available and ‘create an advance in the overall field’.
Brentford football club have received £3.23m in public money for research they have commissioned into sports science, medicine, training and tactics over the past two years.
Recently published work includes a comparison of the positional demands of the Premier League and France’s Ligue 1, a study on the impact of match location on players’ high intensity running speed and a similar piece of work looking at high-speed running and sprinting based on the quality of the opposition.
