Will Muirhead, from FWA sponsor Rocket Sports Network, will represent our members in looking to replicate the sort of commercial deals some leading publishers have agreed with AI companies.
The Football Writers’ Association has launched a formal initiative to engage and negotiate with leading artificial intelligence companies and regulators over the use of our members’ content by AI platforms.
The move follows serious concerns within journalism that large language models and AI search interfaces are increasingly presenting users with detailed summaries and analysis derived from published reporting, reducing referral traffic to original sources and weakening the commercial foundations of digital journalism.
Search-driven news discovery has underpinned the economic model of online publishing for more than two decades, supporting advertising revenue, subscriptions and audience growth. A large proportion of FWA members are freelancers who work for independent publishers, or whose work is not covered by the arrangements that some leading newspapers are already making with AI companies.
These commercial licensing arrangements have been concentrated among a limited number of large publishing groups. Independent journalists operating via digital platforms – including YouTube, podcasts, Substack newsletters and social media – may lack access to comparable mechanisms for recognition or remuneration.
The FWA believes the rapid shift toward AI-mediated answers – in which users receive consolidated responses without visiting source publications – raises fundamental questions about attribution, compensation and sustainability.
The association is particularly concerned that current regulatory discussions risk placing the burden on individual journalists and publishers to opt out of AI training or content-usage frameworks, rather than establishing clear, industry-wide standards. It argues that such an approach will entrench asymmetries between gateway-technology platforms and individual rights holders.
Will Muirhead, whose company Rocket Sports Network has become one of the FWA’s family of sponsors, is an independent publisher who is willing to lead our engagement with AI platforms, policymakers and industry stakeholders. The FWA initiative will explore regulatory and commercial models, capable of supporting innovation, while protecting professional journalism and media plurality.
The FWA intends to contribute formally to ongoing policy consultations and to convene discussions between rights holders and technology companies in the coming months.
If AI is the future of news, then journalism must have a future within it.
by Will Muirhead from Rocket Sports Network, one of the FWA’s family of sponsors
Football has always adapted to technological change. From the advent of live television to the explosion of online coverage and social media, the way supporters consume the game has evolved repeatedly. Journalism has evolved with it.
Artificial intelligence represents the next shift — and perhaps the most profound.
AI systems are now capable of producing detailed answers to complex questions about matches, players and transfers within seconds. For readers, that convenience is obvious. For journalists, however, it raises a difficult question: if AI platforms summarise, synthesise and repackage our work without readers ever visiting the original source, how does the reporting that feeds those systems continue to exist?
For more than two decades, digital journalism has operated on a simple economic principle. Readers discover content via search or social platforms, they visit publishers’ websites, and revenue is generated through advertising or subscriptions. That referral model is imperfect, but it has sustained thousands of journalists and supported plural, competitive coverage of the national game.
AI interfaces disrupt that structure. When a supporter asks a chatbot for analysis of a team’s tactics, an injury update, or a transfer rumour, the system may draw on dozens of original reports — yet present the answer as a consolidated response. The reader’s need to click through disappears. The economic link between reporting and reward weakens.
This is not an argument against innovation. AI will undoubtedly shape the future of media. Used responsibly, it may even enhance reporting — improving research, translation and data analysis. The issue is not whether AI should exist, but whether the journalism it depends upon can remain economically viable.
The Football Writers’ Association represents reporters across national newspapers, broadcasters and digital outlets. Many of our members have spent decades building trusted relationships with sources, travelling the length and breadth of the country to cover clubs, and working long hours to ensure accuracy in a fast-moving sport. That work has value, not only commercially, but democratically and culturally.
Football journalism is more than match reports. It investigates ownership structures, financial sustainability, governance and regulation. It holds institutions to account. It gives voice to supporters and communities. If the underlying reporting diminishes, the consequences extend far beyond the sports pages.
Recent policy discussions have focused on mechanisms that allow publishers to opt out of having their material used in AI systems. That approach risks misunderstanding the structural imbalance between individual journalists and global technology companies. An opt-out regime may appear to protect rights, but it does little to establish sustainable norms for attribution or compensation.
Equally concerning is the prospect that licensing agreements will be struck selectively with large media groups, leaving independent journalists and smaller publishers without representation. Football coverage today is increasingly diverse. Many respected reporters operate through newsletters, podcasts, video channels and digital platforms outside traditional newsroom structures. Any durable framework must recognise that breadth.
There is a broader principle at stake. Media plurality depends on economic viability. If AI accelerates a concentration of revenue away from reporting and toward aggregation, fewer journalists will be able to do the work in the first place. In time, that risks narrowing the range of perspectives and reducing the depth of scrutiny applied to the institutions that govern the game.
This is not a binary choice between progress and protectionism. The challenge for government and regulators is to ensure that innovation develops alongside fair market structures. Clear standards on transparency, attribution and compensation are not obstacles to technological advancement; they are preconditions for sustainable ecosystems.
Football has always thrived on competition. Journalism is no different. The aim is not to shield reporters from change, but to ensure that those who create original work are not structurally disincentivised from doing so.
AI systems are built on information. If the pipeline of reliable and professional reporting contracts, the quality of those systems will ultimately decline as well. The long-term interests of technology companies and journalists are not opposed; they are intertwined.
The question is whether we recognise that interdependence early enough to shape policy accordingly.
Innovation should raise standards, not hollow them out. If AI is to define the future of news, journalism must have a secure place within that future.
