CNN International will debut second screen technology for its new half hour weekly football debate show, ‘CNN Football Club'(www.cnn.com/footballclub), enabling online users to view and manipulate real time data and statistics on Champion’s League players and teams and share comments via social media including Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Powered by London-based start-up, Squawka (www.squawka.com), the functionality gives users the chance to take centre stage in the Champion’s League match commentary by going head-to-head with each other in a debate style set-up that mirrors the format of the ‘CNN Football Club’ show, on air. Squawka will also power a touch screen application, enabling host Pedro Pinto and guests to use statistics to analyse football games in the studio for audiences at home

Nick Wrenn, Vice President, Digital Services, CNN International said: “At CNN, our audience helps drive the agenda; they’re ‘social citizens’ and they’re more interested in having a voice than ever before. This functionality elevates the audience to the commentary box, closing the gap between the web and TV, and building a real-time digital community through the global language of football.”

Squawka Co-Founder and CEO Sanjit Atwal said: “Sports fans have always loved the data behind their passion but there has traditionally been a “dumbing down” at media level. At Squawka we have worked hard to visualise football data in real-time and we applaud CNN for believing in the intelligence of fans globally to interact with this new format”.