diff --git a/kloppy/infra/serializers/event/statsperform/parsers/__init__.py b/kloppy/infra/serializers/event/statsperform/parsers/__init__.py
index 96c6bc29c..7475d7355 100644
--- a/kloppy/infra/serializers/event/statsperform/parsers/__init__.py
+++ b/kloppy/infra/serializers/event/statsperform/parsers/__init__.py
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ def get_parser(
 ) -> OptaParser:
     # infer the data format if not provided
     if feed_format is None:
-        if feed.read(1).decode("utf-8")[0] == "<":
+        if feed.read(4).decode("utf-8-sig")[0] == "<":
             feed_format = "XML"
         else:
             feed_format = "JSON"
diff --git a/kloppy/infra/serializers/tracking/tracab/parsers/__init__.py b/kloppy/infra/serializers/tracking/tracab/parsers/__init__.py
index eeed75585..6dddb23b5 100644
--- a/kloppy/infra/serializers/tracking/tracab/parsers/__init__.py
+++ b/kloppy/infra/serializers/tracking/tracab/parsers/__init__.py
@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ def get_metadata_parser(
 ) -> TracabMetadataParser:
     # infer the data format if not provided
     if feed_format is None:
-        if feed.read(1).decode("utf-8")[0] == "<":
+        if feed.read(4).decode("utf-8-sig")[0] == "<":
             feed.seek(0)
             meta_data = objectify.fromstring(feed.read())
             if hasattr(meta_data, "match"):