Sports · academy operations2026Build: 6 weeksLive: production
One platform, 42 centres, 12,000 players.
Smurfs FC runs Pakistan's largest football academy network — 42 training centres across six cities, more than 12,000 players, programmes from grassroots to elite. We built the platform that runs the lot: enrolment, fees, attendance, coach assignments, parent comms, player progression. One system, every centre.
HeadlineCentres live on a single platform — replacing the spreadsheets, WhatsApp threads and centre-manager memory that used to keep the network running.
01 — The brief
The academy outgrew its tools.
Enrolment lived in spreadsheets. Fees lived in WhatsApp. Coach rosters lived in someone's head. Each new centre made it harder to keep all four in sync — and the network was about to grow again.
Head office had no clean view across centres. Parents had no consistent way to reach the academy. Coaches were re-entering the same player into a new sheet every term. The fix wasn't another tool. The fix was one.
02 — What we built
One platform, built for the network.
A web platform plus a WhatsApp comms layer. Built so a coach with a cheap Android in a side-pitch can mark attendance in three taps, and head office can see the network from one screen.
- EnrolmentParents register, pick a centre and a programme, pay, all from a single link. No paper, no spreadsheets, no chase.
- AttendanceCoaches mark sessions on their phone. Missed sessions auto-prompt the parent before anyone has to ask.
- Fees & payoutsStripe-backed billing for parents; clean monthly payouts and reconciliation for centre managers and head office.
- Parent commsWhatsApp number that answers schedule and billing questions, escalates the rest. Same channel families already use.
- Head-office reportsWeekly performance per centre — players, attendance, fees, churn — landing in inboxes without anyone running a query.
Next.js·Postgres·WhatsApp Business API·Stripe·Vercel·Cloudflare·neu agent runtime
03 — Result
From spreadsheets to network-wide in six weeks.
The next 42 centres won't be a software problem. The platform was built so the network can keep doubling without doubling the back office.
“We had outgrown spreadsheets two years ago and kept finding ways around it. The platform let us stop finding ways around it. The next 42 centres won't be a problem.
Operations · Smurfs FC
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