How Cambridge United Uses Genie AI to Speed Up Player Signings and Slash Legal Costs

The Challenge: Beating the Clock on Player Deals and Commercial Growth

For Cambridge United, contract work isn’t just about paperwork - it’s about timing. Player transfers, sponsorship agreements and supplier contracts all carry strict deadlines. Missing one could mean losing a key signing or delaying vital revenue streams.

As Alex Tunbridge, CEO of Cambridge United F.C., explains: "Not being able to move at the quickest possible speed may mean you may miss out on the player. It may mean you can’t get a player registered in time."

With no in-house legal counsel, the club relied on external lawyers, which was costly and time-consuming: "We felt there was an opportunity here to use AI to upskill and also increase the quality of our work and reduce errors."

The Solution: AI-Powered Contract Management with Genie AI

Cambridge United turned to Genie AI, a Cambridge-born legal-tech pioneer, becoming the first professional football club to manage player contracts using AI.

The platform now helps the club draft and review player, employee and commercial agreements at speed, surfacing key clauses and suggesting fixes instantly.

Tunbridge highlights the impact: "One of the things that Genie’s allowed us to do is to input a contract and be able to get summaries and key information out of it very quickly. But at the same time, it’s also allowing us to draft contracts and agreements at far greater speeds than we were able to before."

The software ensures all critical conditions – such as safeguarding and ED&I clauses required by the EFL – are properly included. This frees the small team to focus on what matters most: fan engagement, sponsorship activation and player recruitment.

Neil Rowe, Head of Commercial at the club, says: "Genie actually frees up time for us to concentrate on other things like activating sponsorships, fan engagement, whatever there might be."

Ease of use was another deciding factor. Despite initial nerves about bringing AI into football operations, Genie AI’s intuitive design won the club over: "It was a bit daunting to sit down with an AI tech company from a legal industry’s point of view. It’s not our world. But actually, to really break it down and say this is really simple and you can use this – anyone can use this – that was massively appealing."

The Impact: Speed, Consistency, and Smarter Decisions

The results were immediate. Early pilots on supplier and player contracts cut review cycles from weeks to days. The club can now respond faster to transfer deadlines, maintain high consistency across contracts, and reduce reliance on external legal spend.

Rowe adds: "Once we had the demo and realized how much time, resource, and money it could save the football club, it was an absolute no-brainer. Moving forwards we can ensure that we get that real high level of consistency and quality."

For a small team, success looks like unlocking time for higher-value work: "Success absolutely looks like giving our small team more time to improve the fan engagement experience, corporate activation, and sponsorship activation – and concentrating on stuff that we’re really good at."

Looking Ahead

Cambridge United see this as just the beginning, with plans to roll our use of Genie AI's legal AI platform across everything - from academy, to media, to catering and beyond.

"The first signs are really positive, but there’s no doubt in our mind from what we’ve seen so far that this will be implemented across the whole club," Rowe affirms.