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football-data.org

Football API with fixtures, scores, league tables, lineups, scorers and squads; free plan for 12 competitions, paid plans extend competitions, live scores and rate limits, with add-ons for odds and match statistics.

Facts verified against the provider's site on

Commercial use: not disclosedBetting use: not disclosedMixed
Visit official siteOpen API docsCompare
Featured in:🆓 Best free sports APIs💬 Most discussed sports APIs📈 Best betting odds APIs🐙 Most used on GitHub⚽ Best football APIs
64

SportDex Score

#11 of 233 sports APIs

See the full ranking →
Popularity
65

Brand demand, developer discussions, GitHub repos and videos

Community & reliability
55

Tone of public discussions, liked vs criticised points, reliability complaints; based on 25+ public discussions.

Transparency
85

Public prices, docs, terms and coverage you can check before calling sales

Developer experience
55

Free access, docs, SDKs, OpenAPI, sandbox, realtime delivery, ecosystem

Computed from public data only; uptime and latency are not measured yet. Enterprise feeds that sell by contract score lower on transparency by design. How the score works

Starting price
€12/mo
Free access
Free tier
Sports
1 (Football (soccer))
Live data
Yes
Delivery
Polling only (REST)
Discussions
31 threads
GitHub adoption
9.0k repos

Best for

Football apps and side projects that need fixtures, tables and scores for major European leagues, with a free tier and small monthly upgrades.

League table and fixture sitesLive score appsMatch lineup and scorer pagesPre-match 1X2 odds displays

Not ideal for

Projects that need sports other than football, or detailed live and event data on the free plan.

Limitations to check

  • − Free plan covers 12 competitions with delayed scores
  • − Lineups, scorers and squads need a paid plan
  • − Odds and match statistics are 15 EUR add-ons
  • − Rate limits are 10 to 120 requests per minute by plan

Written from the provider's own pages (source).

Last checked 2026-11-03

football-data.org at a glance

What is football-data.org best for?
Football apps and side projects that need fixtures, tables and scores for major European leagues, with a free tier and small monthly upgrades. Not ideal for: Projects that need sports other than football, or detailed live and event data on the free plan.
How much does football-data.org cost?
The cheapest public paid plan of football-data.org is €12/mo. Listed plans: Free w/ Livescores €12/mo; Odds Add-On €15/mo; Statistic Add-On €15/mo; ML Pack Light €29/mo; Free + Deep Data €29/mo.
Does football-data.org have a free tier?
Yes. football-data.org lists a free plan called "Free" (10 requests per minute).
What does football-data.org cover?
football-data.org is a sports data api. Its sports: Football (soccer); data: Fixtures, Historical data, Lineups, Odds, Live scores, Standings, Team stats. Live / in-play data is offered.
Does football-data.org have a WebSocket or streaming API?
No streaming is listed. football-data.org delivers data by REST, so you poll for updates.
What do developers say about football-data.org?
Popular free-tier choice for hobby football projects: World Cup predictors, score trackers, league tables, and a fallback when API-Football quota runs out. Developers like the free key and simple docs. Complaints: free tier gives fixtures and final scores but no shots, xG or lineups, history starts around 2019, and a low request rate.
What are the alternatives to football-data.org?
Close alternatives in the SportDex catalog: Sportmonks, iSports API, Goalserve, Live Score API, StatPal.

Commercial decision

Pricing & plan limits

PlanPriceRequestsWhat's included
FreeFree10 / minute12 competitions, delayed scores, fixtures, tablessource
Free w/ Livescores€12/mo20 / minute12 competitions with live scoressource
Odds Add-On€15/mo—Pre-match 1X2 odds for 40 competitionssource
Statistic Add-On€15/mo—Corners, fouls, possession, shots etc.source
ML Pack Light€29/mo20 / minuteTrend/form data, 10 seasons of historysource
Free + Deep Data€29/mo30 / minuteLineups, goal scorers, cards, squadssource
Standard€49/mo60 / minute30 competitions with deep datasource
Advanced€99/mo100 / minute50 competitionssource
Pro€199/mo120 / minute100 competitionssource

VAT may apply. Docs URL is the standard quickstart path, not fetched.

Before choosing a paid plan, confirm

• What counts as one request (per call, per market, per region?)

• What happens when you exceed the quota: blocked or billed

• Whether live and historical data are on your plan

• Whether your use (public app, betting, resale) is licensed

The critical question

Data coverage

Sports
Football (soccer)
Data types
FixturesHistorical dataLineupsOddsLive scoresStandingsTeam stats
Key competitions
Champions League, Premier League, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, Serie A, La Liga, Eredivisie, Primeira Liga, Championship, Brasileirao Serie A, World Cup, European Championshipsource
Competitions
Not disclosed
Live / in-play
Yes
Women's competitions
Not disclosed
Betting markets
1x2
Bookmaker regions
Not disclosed
Bookmakers
Not disclosed
History depth
10 seasons on ML Pack Light
Update frequency
Not disclosed
Name languages
Not disclosed
ID mapping
Not disclosed

Coverage often depends on the plan; confirm the exact league and season on your plan.

Before you build

Usage rights & access

Commercial use
Not disclosed
Betting products
Not disclosed
Redistribution
Not disclosed
Storing data
Not disclosed
Attribution
Not disclosed
Logos & photos
Not disclosed
Who can buy
Individualssource
Verification (KYC)
Not disclosed
Not available in
Not disclosed
Only available in
Not disclosed

Developer-ready evaluation

Integration & documentation

Protocols
REST
Formats
JSON
Authentication
api key
SDKs
Not disclosed
OpenAPI spec
Not disclosed
Claimed latency
Not disclosed
Status page
Not disclosed
Sandbox / test keys
Not disclosed
Support
email
SLA uptime
Not disclosed
Preview brief
# Integration brief: football-data.org

Goal: build a feature on football-data.org data. Use only the official documentation below as the source of truth.

## Known facts (from SportDex, verify before relying on them)
- Website: https://www.football-data.org
- Docs: https://www.football-data.org/documentation/quickstart
- Sports: Football (soccer)
- Data: Fixtures, Historical data, Lineups, Odds, Live scores, Standings, Team stats
- Protocols: REST; formats: json
- Auth: api_key
- Free plan: Free, 10 requests per minute
- Cheapest paid plan: €12/mo
- Note: VAT may apply. Docs URL is the standard quickstart path, not fetched.

## Verify before writing code
- live update frequency
- whether commercial use is allowed on the plan you pick
- exact endpoint paths, parameters and response fields (read the official docs, do not guess)

## Implementation rules
- Keep the API key on the server (environment variable, backend route or edge function); never ship it to the browser.
- Cache responses and respect rate limits; count how many requests each screen triggers.
- Handle errors explicitly: invalid key, quota exceeded (429), missing fields, empty fixtures, timeouts.
- Start with one demo request and log the raw response before building UI on assumed field names.

Data quality signals

Data source & company

Official partners
Not disclosed
How data is collected
Not disclosed
Certifications
Not disclosed
Payment methods
Not disclosed
Minimum contract
Not disclosed
Country
Not disclosed
Founded
Not disclosed

Reddit · Hacker News · Stack Overflow · GitHub · YouTube

What developers say

Mixedfree tiercoveragedata qualityalternatives

Popular free-tier choice for hobby football projects: World Cup predictors, score trackers, league tables, and a fallback when API-Football quota runs out. Developers like the free key and simple docs. Complaints: free tier gives fixtures and final scores but no shots, xG or lineups, history starts around 2019, and a low request rate.

Praised for

  • Free API key good for fixtures and results
  • Frequently chosen for side projects
  • Used as fallback when API-Football is limited or suspended

Complaints

  • No detailed match stats or xG on free tier
  • Limited history before 2019
  • Low free rate limit (about 10 requests per minute)

Our summary of public discussions, not a rating. Vendor posts are not counted as user opinion.

Discussions

Shortlist next steps

Alternatives worth comparing

  • Sportmonks logo
    SportmonksSports data API69

    REST API for football with live scores, fixtures, lineups, xG, predictions and odds across 2,200+ leagues, plus separate cricket and Formula 1 APIs.

    Free tier14-day trialLiveFootball (soccer)CricketFormula 1
    from €29/mo40 discussions · 207 repos
  • iSports API logo
    iSports APISports data API45

    Asian-based sports data API covering football and basketball: livescore, fixtures, lineups, stats, standings, pre-match and in-play odds, historical data and animation, with a free trial and widgets.

    LiveFootball (soccer)Basketball
    from $49/mo4 discussions · 7 repos
  • Goalserve logo
    GoalserveSports data API45

    XML/JSON sports data feeds: live scores, fixtures, results, stats, injuries, historical data and odds for soccer, US sports and many others, sold as per-feed subscriptions.

    ⚡ StreamingMulti-sport (40+)Football (soccer)American football+1
    from $150/mo5 discussions · 7 repos
  • Live Score API logo
    Live Score APISports data API36

    Football data API with live scores, fixtures, standings, events, lineups, statistics, head-to-head, odds and commentary for 500+ competitions; REST with tiered monthly plans.

    14-day trialLiveFootball (soccer)
    from €11/mo0 discussions · 19 repos
  • StatPal logo
    StatPalSports data API43

    Sports data API for live scores, odds, news and match storylines across 12+ sports and 1,000+ soccer leagues. Two flat monthly plans with a 14-day trial and an OpenAPI schema.

    14-day trialLiveFootball (soccer)American footballBasketball+5
    from $29/mo1 discussions · 0 repos
Sportmonks vs football-data.orgfootball-data.org vs iSports APIfootball-data.org vs Goalservefootball-data.org vs Live Score APIfootball-data.org vs StatPal

Evidence & transparency

Official sources

Facts were extracted from the provider's own pages on 2026-11-03. Empty fields mean the provider does not say, not that the feature is missing. How we know