Soccer APIs – Long Name for Club Disambiguation

We've added a long_name attribute for all competitors in the Season Competitors endpoint of our Soccer APIs.

long_name provides the complete, display-ready club name with home-nation context — essential in international competitions where clubs from multiple nations appear together.

For example, name returns "Newcastle United Jets" (risking confusion with Newcastle United, the English Premier League club), but long_name returns "Newcastle Jets FC (AUS)" — unambiguous. This field surfaces both fuller official club names (Beijing Guoan → Beijing FC) and country tagging (Kashima Antlers → Kashima Antlers (JPN)).

{
    "id": "sr:competitor:2934",
    "name": "Newcastle United Jets",
    "short_name": "Newcastle",
    "long_name": "Newcastle Jets FC (AUS)",
    "abbreviation": "NUJ",
    "gender": "male"
},

⭐ Benefit

Prevent club-name confusion in international competitions and continental brackets by displaying the complete, disambiguated club name with home-nation context — so "Newcastle" reads as "Newcastle Jets FC (AUS)" and not Newcastle United.

📋 Recommended Actions

Read the long_name attribute from the Season Competitors endpoint alongside name and short_name.
Display long_name in international competitions, standings, and brackets where clubs from multiple nations appear together, or use it for cross-source data matching where the fuller official name matches more reliably.
Use name for familiar display in domestic leagues, and short_name for space-constrained UI like scoreboards or tabs.

🔢 Products

Sport	Product	Version(s)
Soccer	Soccer API	v4
Soccer	Soccer Extended API	v4

🔁 Endpoints Affected

Season Competitors

☑️ Sample Request:

curl --request GET \
     --url https://api.sportradar.com/soccer/trial/v4/en/seasons/sr:season:144602/competitors.json \
     --header 'accept: application/json' \
     --header 'x-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY'

⚙️ Return Samples

<competitor id="sr:competitor:2934" name="Newcastle United Jets" short_name="Newcastle" long_name="Newcastle Jets FC (AUS)" abbreviation="NUJ" gender="male"/>
<competitor id="sr:competitor:2946" name="Adelaide United FC" short_name="Adelaide" long_name="Adelaide United FC (AUS)" abbreviation="ADU" gender="male"/>
<competitor id="sr:competitor:3134" name="Kashima Antlers" short_name="Kashima" long_name="Kashima Antlers (JPN)" abbreviation="KAS" gender="male"/>
<competitor id="sr:competitor:3376" name="Beijing Guoan" short_name="Beijing Guoan" long_name="Beijing FC (CHN)" abbreviation="BJG" gender="male"/>
<competitor id="sr:competitor:6908" name="Jeonbuk FC" short_name="Jeonbuk" long_name="Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors FC (KOR)" abbreviation="JEO" gender="male"/>
<competitor id="sr:competitor:7645" name="Daejeon Citizen FC" short_name="Daejeon Citizen" long_name="Daejeon Hanacitizen (KOR)" abbreviation="DAJ" gender="male"/>
<competitor id="sr:competitor:21895" name="Al Hilal SFC" short_name="Al Hilal" long_name="Al Hilal SFC (KSA)" abbreviation="HIL" gender="male"/>
<competitor id="sr:competitor:23400" name="Al Nassr Club" short_name="Al Nassr" long_name="Al Nassr Club (KSA)" abbreviation="ALN" gender="male"/>
...

"season_competitors": [
    {
        "id": "sr:competitor:2934",
        "name": "Newcastle United Jets",
        "short_name": "Newcastle",
        "long_name": "Newcastle Jets FC (AUS)",
        "abbreviation": "NUJ",
        "gender": "male"
    },
    {
        "id": "sr:competitor:3376",
        "name": "Beijing Guoan",
        "short_name": "Beijing Guoan",
        "long_name": "Beijing FC (CHN)",
        "abbreviation": "BJG",
        "gender": "male"
    },
    {
        "id": "sr:competitor:6908",
        "name": "Jeonbuk FC",
        "short_name": "Jeonbuk",
        "long_name": "Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors FC (KOR)",
        "abbreviation": "JEO",
        "gender": "male"
    },
    ...
]