League of Ireland partner has received more than $4 million in US Department of War contracts

One of the League of Ireland’s commercial partners is a US military contractor that helps “optimise the performance” of soldiers – and has also provided performance analysis to Israeli sports teams. 

The partner, Kitman Labs, works with the US Department of War and its website says that “from general military service to Special Operations Forces, whether on the battlefield or behind a desk” the company “support(s) every type of service. 

It’s received more than $4 million in Department of War contracts since 2022. 

A spokesperson for the company said all its contracts are with “legitimate organisations”.

Last month the League of Ireland announced the company will provide “performance intelligence” across 22 League of Ireland academies as part of a “a multi-year, league-wide” partnership.  

‘Facilitating an optimal route to warfighter optimisation’

Kitman Labs, with an address at Dotpatch Labs in Dublin’s North Wall Quay, is partnering with the League of Ireland with its “iP: Intelligence Platform”. 

This is the same platform it provides to the United States military and Israeli football teams, including Maccabi Tel-Aviv whose fans have been banned from matches for anti-Arab racist chants. In 2022, Kitman Labs announced a commercial partnership with Maccabi Tel Aviv FC to give the team “actionable insights and real-time risk alerts” for its players. 

On August 25, the League of Ireland and Kitman Labs announced their new commercial partnership, with the league’s Will Clarke saying,  “Today represents a genuine step-change in how we develop young players across the League of Ireland.”

The technology the League of Ireland intends to use to “optimise” the performance of players is also used by the United States military - which during its assault on Iran has committed war crimes, including the bombing of a school in Minab, killing 156 people.  

Kitman Labs – in which Enterprise Ireland owns 1000 ordinary shares according to its most recent annual return – said in 2021 after a fundraising round that it intended to “leverage opportunities” in the military sector, Silicon Republic reported. 

USAspending.gov, an open source database on spending by the United States government, has collected details of Kitman Labs’ military contracts . 

They included a $480,000 contract with the United States Air Force Weapons School as well as another contract worth more than $1.5 million with the US Air Force. 

A description of one contract on the site, valued at $91,339, which lasted from July 2024 to June 2025, says, “The objective of the Kitman Labs Warfighter Optimization Project is to help improve operational performance in individuals, teams, and organisations – facilitating an optimal route to warfighter optimisation and success in the field of operations.”

Kitman Labs says its aim is to “optimise the performance and return” on “our most important assets – services members”.

An FAI spokesperson said, “The League of Ireland recently announced a partnership with the sports arm of Dublin-headquartered and founded sports technology company Kitman Labs. While Kitman Labs does not currently have any clients based in Israel, the company does work with more than 4,000 teams, leagues and federations across 26 countries including many Irish sporting organisations.”

A Kitman Labs spokesperson said,“Kitman Labs cannot comment on individual partnerships. However, we wish to make clear that all contracts are held with legitimate organisations and any inference otherwise would be misleading.”