Cambridge United is trialling a local-born AI system to draft, review and track contracts in record time
Imagine a January transfer window in which a club’s director of football can close three signings before lunch.
Negotiations take hours, not weeks; clauses are checked and benchmarked against league rules in seconds; the same playbook that served the club well in past deals is applied without a lawyer typing a word.
In this scenario, the real bottleneck is the player’s medical and not the paperwork.
For Cambridge United, a UK League Two side with a modest budget but big ambitions, this future is not entirely hypothetical. It has begun to take shape in the form of a partnership with Genie AI, a Cambridge-born legal-tech firm whose “autonomous legal agents” are now drafting, reviewing and tracking the club’s player contracts.
From problem to pilot
The club’s operational challenge was a high volume of agreements, from sponsorships and catering to multi-party property deals, processed by a lean team under time pressure.
“Our primary reason for embracing AI in this area was to improve efficiency and reduce risk,” says Alex Tunbridge, Cambridge United’s chief executive. “The system allows multiple individuals to work on player transactions, promotes standardisation of contractual clauses, and significantly speeds up drafting.”
Genie’s co-founder and CEO, Rafie Faruq, says Cambridge United was “an ideal first partner because of their forward-thinking culture and willingness to adopt innovative solutions to support operational efficiency.”
In his view, their lean resources, high contract variety, and need to scale processes without adding headcount mirrored the challenges many commercial clients face, making the football pitch a proving ground for his technology.
How it works in football
Unlike a traditional legal review, the Genie AI agent fits into the player contract process at the drafting stage.
“The system is primarily used for the drafting of contractual terms,” says Tunbridge. “It allows us to standardise contractual clauses, scans contracts for errors and provides a summary of terms which can be shared with relevant parties.”
For Genie, the football environment meant adapting to both standardised and highly customised agreements. “It seems about 80% follow the football league standard template and guidelines, but then 20% is highly customized, often reflecting the club’s preferences for player bonuses, appearances etc. This 20% is where the magic happens — how can we ensure the player and the club get the best deal, use tried and tested legal language, and remain consistent with past practices and EFL guidelines?” says Faruq.
The company’s solution is to create playbooks filled with the club’s approved language to populate those non-standard sections quickly and accurately.
Trust and cultural adoption
Integrating AI into football’s legal processes requires trust and not just in the technology.
“We have had to make minor amendments both culturally and operationally; however, there is an understanding that the system is here to assist as opposed to replace,” Tunbridge explains.
“It helps supplement and support our football administration team, improve efficiency, and improve our operations in this area of the Club.”
Faruq says Genie’s approach is deliberately transparent. “Every action taken by an AI agent is recorded, version-controlled, and displayed in a way that’s understandable to both legal and non-legal users. When our AI flags a risk, it explains why. When it makes a change, it shows exactly what was changed, and why. Our vision is to make Genie the safest place in the world to contract.”
From savings to reinvestment
For now, Cambridge United is in learning mode.
“We are currently trialling the system and developing it in partnership with Genie AI. We expect to learn a lot in the first season, and we will be investing time and resource to further develop the product for benefit in the future. We hope to see financial savings in the second season and be able to redirect these into other areas,” says Tunbridge.
The promise is that the minutes shaved from contract cycles could compound into days saved across a season — freeing resources for recruitment, facilities, and fan experience.
Faruq sees a broader industry upside: “Whether it’s sponsorship, merchandising, broadcasting, or player transfers, sport runs on complex agreements that must move fast — but are often slowed by manual review and legal bottlenecks.”
Local roots, wider horizons
Both organisations are Cambridge natives, and both see the partnership as part of the city’s growing role in AI innovation.
“Cambridge is becoming a hot bed for AI and it is important that we embrace this within the local landscape however, we believe it can be adopted by any Club at the professional level of the game,” says Tunbridge.
For Genie, the football sector is a test bed for ideas that could scale across professional sport.
“Cambridge United is more than a pilot partner — they’re a design partner,” Faruq says. Future features shaped by the club’s input could become standard for sports organisations worldwide.
If the trial succeeds, Cambridge United may have shown how even the smallest professional clubs can match Premier League-level efficiency without Premier League budgets.
In a sport where transfer deadlines and sponsorship deals are increasingly complex, the real competitive edge might come from winning the contract race; and AI could be the new signing that makes it happen.
