Publish the Call, Then Publish the Grade

Dear Editor,

South African football fans argue about everything — lineups, referees, who should start up front. But there’s one argument we never have, because nobody gives us the numbers: were the predictions we read all week actually any good?

I help run XG Mind AI, a small independent football data lab. Our rule is simple and, frankly, unusual: every match prediction we publish goes out before kickoff, and every single one gets graded against the final score afterward — in public, permanently, misses included. No deleting the bad weeks.

We do it because the alternative is what the whole industry does now: forecasters screenshot their hits and let their misses dissolve into the feed. Fans deserve better than a highlight reel. A forecaster with a public, checkable record — even an imperfect one — is worth ten confident voices with no receipts.

We’ve also published our underlying data openly, with academic citations, so anyone can audit our working rather than take our word for it. Transparency shouldn’t be a marketing slogan; it should be a spreadsheet anyone can download.

As South African football keeps growing its data culture — and with major tournaments on the horizon — I’d love to see local analysts and fan media adopt the same habit: publish the call, then publish the grade. The conversation gets smarter the moment the receipts are public.

Yours sincerely,
xgmindcom

In Response to/From: Regarding Lotto Winner Article