A sporting director is now a common part of any elite footballing structure. While generally
understood as a measure taken to protect clubs from the growing financial risk associated
with their sporting decisions and as a means of ensuring
continuity, the mechanics of the role remain vague.
Previously, football departments were governed more simply, by a manager and an executive.
The manager would coach the side, the executive would handle club finances, and both would
share responsibility for recruitment decisions.
But while this method was successful in the past, the model is inadequate to serve the
modern game. The dynamic was predicated on the kind
of strong relationships which the declining lifespan of
managers has made a thing of the past. According to 21st Club data from 2018, managers have
lasted an average of just 14 months since the 2012/13
season. The logical consequence has been that clubs
are now increasingly reluctant to bestow transfer authority upon a transient position. More
broadly, building any short or long term strategy around
the role accentuates the wastage already associated with professional football.
Bury sporting director Lee Dykes characterised this problem in a recent interview with the
Telegraph, saying:
“We cannot be self sustainable if, every time there is a change of manager, all of
the plans go out of the window, a big chunk of staff leaves and
half the playing squad is considered a cost because the
new manager wants to bring his own players in. It would just plough the football club
into debt.” The evolution of football has also manifested
in the creation of many more performance layers within
a club, requiring a level of expertise beyond that of the old executive. Now, sports science,
analytics, scouting, and coaching units operate as their
own departments, almost like individual businesses with
their own specific targets and aims. Essentially, the sporting director role has
grown to fill space created by football’s growth. The position
demands a combination of business and sporting acumen, combined with strong leadership ability
and inter-personal skills. Typically, they are
also trained professionals with real-world qualifications.
Damien Comolli, previously sporting director at Liverpool and Tottenham, has a law degree.
Raul Sanllehi, currently head of football at Arsenal,
spent over a decade working for Nike and has a BA in
economics, marketing and finance. These are not just ex-players who have migrated into
management roles post-retirement, but skilled, educated
and experienced private sector workers. Not that ex-players are precluded from the
positions: Borussia Dortmund’s Michael Zorc is widely
considered to be one of the most successful sporting directors of the modern era. After
playing for the club for 17 years, Zorc took on the role in
1998. During his tenure, the club have won the Bundesliga
three times, reached a Champions League final, and have consistently produced, nurtured and
recruited talented young players. Zorc has been fundamental to that success
and is responsible for creating and sustaining the
philosophy at its core. In “How the World’s Best Play the 21st Century Game” by Grant
Wahl, Zorc outlined his approach.
“Our philosophy is linked to our region, a working-class region” he said. “So it
has to be daring, it has to be attacking. The fans don’t like it
when the team plays like chess on the field. That’s a very
important point.” Rather than just an ideal, the philosophy
provides a guiding principle for the way the club functions.
For instance, despite hiring four different coaches since the departure of Jurgen Klopp
in 2015, that change has never led to major upheaval. Instead,
Dortmund habitually appoint managers with similar
philosophies who require similar types of players. As a result, a change of manager
never necessitates a squad overhaul.
Additionally, Dortmund is renowned for producing excellent young players through their
academy and also for their intelligent transfer recruitment. In the current squad, Mario Gotze
and Jacob Bruun Larsen are academy graduates,
while the likes of Lucasz Piszczek, Mahmoud Dahoud,
Julien Weigl, Marco Reus, and Jadon Sancho have been purchased at young ages for minimal
fees. Zorc is also insistent that the youth teams
mimic the first-team’s tactics, meaning that
transition to senior level football is easier for developing players. Dortmund’s ability
to purchase and nurture young talent is not simply down to
their excellent scouting, but also the result of a fierce
commitment to youth development that stems from their philosophy of “daring” and
“attacking” football. It makes Dortmund an attractive
destination for players who, by their career’s peak, would
most likely be outside the club’s price range.
That financial reality has accentuated Zorc’s effect. Unlike Bayern Munich domestically,
and Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG and Manchester
City in Europe, Dortmund cannot compete for the best
players in the world. As such, they are forced to find a different route to success.
But that doesn’t mean that the role is less significant at clubs at the top of the food
chain. In addition to the issues suffered at Chelsea
and Manchester United in recent years, where the position
doesn’t exist, Txiki Begiristain’s success at Manchester City makes a compelling case
for its importance.
Begiristain joined City in 2012, after serving as sporting director of Barcelona between
2003 and 2010 under Joan Laporta, during which
time he also appointed Pep Guardiola as head-coach of
the first team. Begiristain was an attractive target for Manchester City, given that the
club have repeatedly expressed a desire to become. like
Barcelona, synonymous with a certain way of playing.
But his personal relationship with Guardiola and the trust between the two of them also
made him an outstanding candidate and, in light of the
club’s success, a primary catalyst for the club’s rapid
evolution. But Begiristain is not just crucial to City
because of his links to Barcelona and Guardiola. Like Zorc, he believes in sensible recruitment
that not only equips his manager properly, but also
reinforces the existence of a native style. Begiristain’s emphasis on transfers contributing
to a long-term project ensures that City don’t view transfers from a purely financial standpoint.
Rather than entering the market simply to buy
marquee stars who can attract media attention and sell shirts, they attempt to look for
players who can fit into a specific blueprint. Their financial
strength enables them to spend the money necessary to
acquire those players, but the overarching guidance - especially when compared to the
lack of direction across town at Old Trafford - affords
them a greater return on their investments. The sporting director model has been successful
at many clubs across various leagues, and has yielded similar success in other sports.
In America, an astute general manager is arguably of equal
or greater importance than any coach: consider Billy Beane’s influence in Oakland, or Theo
Epstein’s effect on, firstly, the Boston Red Sox and,
latterly, the Chicago Cubs, both underachieving franchises
who, after Epstein’s arrival, won the World Series after decades of underachievement and
having cycled through dozens of coaches.
Football still remains more resistant. Even at its highest level, some clubs exhibit an
apparent distrust of sporting directors, preferring
to keep faith with the more traditional, two-pronged structure.
That is not the trend, though: Arsenal will soon appoint their second sporting director
of the postArsene Wenger era, former FA technical director Dan
Ashworth moved to Brighton & Hove Albion in early 2019 and Liverpool’s Michael Edwards,
who was promoted to sporting director in 2018, is
credited with building the squad which Jurgen Klopp has managed to back-to-back Champions
League finals. Across the modern footballing landscape in
Europe, it is now rare to find a successful or
efficiently-performing club which is not under the guidance of a sporting director. It’s
becoming increasingly clear that a position which was
once viewed with suspicion is, by virtue of its
specialisation, becoming fundamental to competing across modern football’s growing battlefields.