Can artificial intelligence help create safer and more respectful sports environments?

València Innovation Capital is launching Fair Play Lab, a new GovTech challenge aimed at startups, companies, universities, technology centres and innovative organisations interested in developing a technological solution capable of detecting, recording and preventing verbal abuse, discriminatory language and aggressive verbal behaviour in grassroots sport.

The challenge is promoted by València Innovation Capital, the Municipal Sports Foundation, the València City Council’s Sports Department, the Directorate General for Sport of the Generalitat Valenciana, and CONFEDECOM. It is part of the XTIC initiative (Centre of Excellence for Sports, Entertainment and Health Technologies), which aims to position València as a living laboratory for innovation in sport.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for an innovative, secure and interoperable technological solution that helps coaches, referees, sports clubs and families identify and prevent verbal abuse during grassroots sports matches and training sessions held in municipal sports facilities.

The solution should be able to:

• Detect offensive expressions in both Spanish and Valencian using artificial intelligence.
• Identify where incidents occur (pitch, bench or stands).
• Record incidents in an anonymised manner.
• Generate dashboards and indicators to support public decision-making and improvement actions.
• Ensure full compliance with European and Spanish data protection and privacy regulations.

The system must not identify individuals or perform voice recognition, will not permanently store conversations, and all alerts must be reviewed and validated by a human before any action is taken.

A pilot project in municipal sports facilities

The selected proposal will be piloted in two to three municipal sports facilities managed by the Municipal Sports Foundation or collaborating sports clubs, within the València Urban Sandbox, where the technology will be tested in a real-world, controlled environment before assessing its scalability.

The project will be implemented in three phases:

• Solution design, Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), and prototype development.
• Pilot deployment, validation and refinement.
• Final evaluation, knowledge transfer and scaling recommendations.

Who can apply?

The call is open to:

• Startups.
• Companies.
• Universities.
• Technology centres.
• Other innovative organisations capable of developing the proposed solution.

Budget

The selected organisation will develop the project through an innovation contract worth up to €50,000.

Submission of proposals

📅 Application deadline: 3 August 2026.

Applications must be submitted through the Spanish Public Procurement Platform.