Player Privacy Policy

Scottish Professional Football League Limited – Players Privacy Policy

The Scottish Professional Football League Limited (SC175364) (referred to as “SPFL”, “we”, “us”, “it” and “our”) is committed to protecting the personal information of players participating in competitions organised by the SPFL.

This policy describes how the SPFL collects and uses the personal information of players who participate in competitions organised by SPFL including but not limited to the cinch Premiership, cinch Championship, cinch League 1 and cinch League 2, the Premier Sports Cup, the SPFL Trust Trophy, the cinch playoffs and certain reserve competitions.  

Please take the time to read this policy in full to understand how we collect and use your personal information and to understand our privacy practices which help us to protect and respect your rights as individuals under data protection laws and to comply with our obligations under those laws. The Scottish Football Association (“the SFA”) and the club you play for will also collect and use your personal information. You may also wish to look at their privacy policies to understand how they collect and use your information.

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this webpage. You should check this policy regularly to ensure you are aware of the most recent version. We last updated this policy in June 2023.

If you have any questions concerning the use of your personal information or if you would like to discuss this policy with us, you can do so by:

• By email at [email protected]; or
• In writing to Assistant Company Secretary, The Scottish Professional Football League, Hampden Park, Glasgow, G42 9DE.

SPFL’s Data Protection Responsibilities

When the SPFL collects and uses the personal information as described in this policy, the SPFL collects and uses that information as a data controller. That means we are responsible for deciding how we use that personal information and for keeping it secure for the period that we hold that information. All personal information that we collect about you will be collected, used and protected by us in accordance with applicable data protection laws and this privacy policy.

The personal information we collect and hold about you

As a player participating in SPFL competitions, we may collect, store, and use the following personal information about you:

Information that you provide directly to SPFL:

• Any information collected via your interactions and communications directly with the SPFL such as your contact details.
• Any information collected via any disciplinary hearings or analogous proceedings or via player appeals under the SPFL template player contract.

Information provided by clubs to SPFL:

• Clubs provide the SPFL with certain medical and health data of players including information about emergency goalkeepers including contact details and health information.
• Clubs also provide the SPFL with information about players who are available for loan or transfer including name, image, playing position and other information which the clubs consider relevant.
• Information on contracts of players or offers of contracts for players, in certain circumstances.
• Information on your personal conduct including records of incidents and allegations of SPFL rule breaches.

Information provided by match officials and SPFL delegates to SPFL:

• Information contained in Match Information Forms and Squad Lists such as name, shirt number, date of birth, if captain and if substituted.
• Information about players contained in reports from match officials or SPFL delegates about incidents, unacceptable conduct and potential disciplinary issues at matches. 
• Information about concussion substitutions at matches.

Information collected from SFA by SPFL:

• The SPFL collects information about players from SFA including name, address, club, date of birth, place of birth, information about the players’ contract status and type, registration status, transfer information, position and nationality.
• Information on players from the SFA (including salary and player injury record) in connection with queries on governing body endorsements or on eligibility to play in SPFL organised competitions for those players.

Information collected from other third parties or other sources by SPFL:

• The SPFL collects information about players from other sources including sports data providers such as OPTA. The information which the SPFL receives from sports data providers like OPTA is publicly available information which has been collated and analysed by those sports data providers. That information includes:
  • Information about players’ playing careers and their participation in SPFL organised competitions including clubs they have played for, positions they have played, shirt numbers and dates of birth; and
  • statistics about players’ appearances and performances in SPFL organised competitions such as number of passes made in a match, goals scored and red and yellow cards given.
• The SPFL collects images and video footage from broadcasts of SPFL organised competitions generated by a production company employed by the SPFL.

• From time to time, the SPFL may collect information about players from broadcasters such as images and video footage taken during SPFL organised competitions.
• Occasionally, we may collect or receive information available about you through publicly available sources and/or records lawfully accessible through legal, governmental or other competent bodies, to supplement information we hold about you.

We may also hold the following information about you:

• Details of your history as a player (e.g. club start and end dates, positions you have played and loan information).
• Medical and health information where we have obtained specific consent from you, where this information is necessary to protect your vital interests or where it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest.
• Information contained in documents you have provided for the purposes of seeking governing body endorsements.  

We may collect, store, and use more sensitive personal information about you (some of which will be a "special category" of information under data protection laws, requiring increased protection), including information about your race, nationality, or ethnicity, gender identity/expression, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, union membership, any health/disability information, and marital/civil partnership status. We will only use “special category” personal information in accordance with data protection laws and therefore only in very specific circumstances, such as where it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, to protect the integrity of the sport of football or to eliminate doping in the sport of football.

How and why we use your personal information

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Under data protection laws, we have a number of legal bases that allow us to collect and process personal information.

Most commonly, the SPFL uses your personal information on the following legal bases:

• it is necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation such as health and safety and other legal obligations;
• it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. Those legitimate interests are predominantly to promote, administer and operate the competitions organised by SPFL, to maintain a historical archive of the SPFL, its competitions and football in Scotland and to support the clubs you play for;
• to defend, bring or establish legal claims;
• for measures designed to eliminate doping in sport;
• for measures designed to protect the integrity of the sport; and
• for reasons of public health or other substantial public interest.

In particular, we use your personal information:

• to administer and operate the SPFL and the competitions organised by SPFL;
• to promote the SPFL and its activities and to illustrate its work in football including for the purposes of television, radio, written press and online media coverage and publicity;
• to administer and uphold its rules, regulations and decisions, including in connection with any investigation, enquiry or adjudication and any related action or fine;
• to maintain a historical archive of the SPFL, its activities and the development of football in Scotland and to preserve the history of Scottish football and the SPFL and its competitions;
• to ensure that you are eligible to be employed as a professional player by the club you play for;
• to record and confirm player match appearances and performances;
• to ensure that contacts and registration documents comply with SPFL’s rules and regulations;
• for the purposes of disciplinary hearings or analogous proceedings or player appeals under the SPFL template player contract;
• to publish team line-ups, squad information, live scoring and final results on our website spfl.co.uk and on our social media accounts;
• for the purposes of television, radio, written press and online media coverage of SPFL fixtures;
• to promote SPFL competitions and other SPFL events and to illustrate the SPFL’s work in Scottish football;
• to provide news, other content and functionality on our website spfl.co.uk and on our social media accounts to allow the fans of the sport and teams and players in Scottish football to engage with and enjoy content and information about the sport and teams and players in Scottish football. This includes providing player statistics in our online Stats Centre on spfl.co.uk;
• to provide online games available on spfl.co.uk to further engage fans of Scottish football such as the SPFL’s fantasy football game;
• to ensure clubs provide appropriate commitment letters to young players they are interested in signing;
• to support clubs by issuing communications to clubs in the UK about players who are available for loan or for transfer at the clubs’ request;
• to resolve disputes and allegations; and
• to communicate with you.

Examples of situations in which we will use “special category” personal information about players:

• to protect the integrity of the sport of football and prevent crime and corruption within the sport;
• to comply with our health and safety obligations;
• to capture information about concussion substitutions at SPFL fixtures and provide anonymised reports on concussion substitutions annually to the International Football Association Board.

How long we keep your personal information for

We only keep your personal information for as long as necessary for the purposes we collected it for and for as long afterwards as is necessary to comply with our legal obligations or as is necessary in our legitimate interests to retain it.

We need to keep some documents containing personal information for an extended period of time, for example, we retain Match Information Forms indefinitely because this is necessary for the running of the SPFL organised competitions and for the purposes of maintaining a historical archive and record of the competitions organised by the SPFL.

All other information shall be retained for as long as required for the purposes above.

Who we share your information with and what information we share

We may share your personal information described in this privacy policy with our third party service providers and suppliers and certain information with our sponsors, business partners and licensees for the purposes set out in this privacy policy only. The third party service providers and suppliers may process personal information on our behalf as data processors. We ensure that such data processors are subject to contractual conditions to process personal information only in accordance with our instructions and in accordance with the law.

Sponsors and Business Partners: We may share your personal information with our business partners and sponsors and licensees as follows:

• video footage and broadcast footage of players recorded and made available by or on behalf of SPFL to media and broadcast partners and licensees such as for BBC highlights of SPFL organised competitions;
• images and player names, ages and whether captain or vice-captain with official partners and licensees of SPFL including our computer games licensees (currently EA Sports, Konami and Sega) for use on websites, social media, other permitted promotional purposes and within the licensed computer game products.

Clubs: We may share your personal information with clubs as follows:

• video footage of SPFL fixtures for the purposes of clubs’ use of Wyscout;
• information about players who are available for loan or transfer including name, image, playing position and other information which the players’ clubs consider relevant.

SFA: We may share players’ personal information with SFA from time to time for the purposes of or in connection with disciplinary hearings or analogous proceedings or player appeals under SPFL rules to SFA.

We may also share your personal information with third parties where the disclosure is required by law. Where disclosure to third parties is required by law, our legal basis for processing your information in this way is that it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation that we are subject to.

Overseas transfers

Your personal information may be transferred to, and stored in, countries outside of the UK and EU for the above purposes. The SPFL will take steps to ensure your personal information is adequately protected in countries outside of the UK and EU. Please contact us if you would like more details on safeguards used by the SPFL to protect personal information for these transfers.

Your rights

Data protection laws in the UK provide individuals with certain rights regarding the use of their personal information.

You have the right to:

• access the personal information that we hold about you in many circumstances;
• ask us to delete or correct any personal information that we hold about you;
• prevent us processing your personal information;
• port your personal information in certain circumstances;
• not be subject to a solely automated decision;
• withdraw any consent that you have given. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before withdrawal; and
• lodge a complaint with the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, if you have concerns about how we use your personal information. Please see https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ to find out more.

Please contact us if you would like to exercise any of your data protection rights.

How to contact us

If there is anything in this privacy policy that you would like to contact us about or to exercise any of your data protection rights described in this privacy policy, please contact us using the contact details below.

• By email at [email protected]; or
• In writing to Assistant Company Secretary, The Scottish Professional Football League, Hampden Park, Glasgow, G42 9DE.