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The director’s of football are a strange breed, from a fan’s perspective their role at the club is usually shrouded in mystery and we are left scratching our heads in an attempt to justify their position of power. Their emergence in this country is yet another example of how popular foreign traditions continue to shape the future of English football. Liverpool’s decision to axe Damien Comolli just days before their FA Cup semi-final caught many by surprise and presents the club with a real dilemma regarding their next move.
Hailed as senior management figures, the director’s of football come in all shapes and sizes with the role being designed to help alleviate the pressure from the shoulders of the club’s manager. These individuals act as an ambassador for the club by dealing with the day-to-day politics, attending meetings, shaking all the right hands and generally allowing the managerial staff to concentrate solely on footballing matters. However, should these lines become blurred then a power struggle ensues, which is when the whole structure begins to fall down.
There aren’t many success stories of these relationships in English football, perhaps because such appointments convey an undermining of authority, especially if the manager has no say in their preferred candidate. I think many people have an issue with the perceived superiority surrounding the title of the ‘director of football’. Can you imagine Ferguson being content with such a figure at Old Trafford? Avram Grant’s appointed into the role at Chelsea in 2007 reportedly contributed the departure of an unhappy Jose Mourinho.
Perhaps these individuals are best to distance themselves from the established personalities in football and instead take up roles where managers are still learning the ropes. This could be one of the reasons for the recent success at Reading where Nick Hammond currently sits alongside the impressive yet rather inexperienced Brain McDermott. This rare instance of triumph could be about to replicated at Crawley with Steve Coppell swooping in to aid caretaker manager Craig Brewster. It’s still early days but perhaps the director of football role presents a new and exciting challenge for figures in football, especially seeing as it can tempt a man that had seemingly retired from the sport after a brief and disinterested spell at Bristol City.
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The success stories of such folk on European shores exist at clubs like Barcelona, Real Madrid, PSG and Benfica. In each example the man at the helm is a former player who has a previous affiliation with the club, perhaps if Liverpool are to succeed with their next appointment they should adopt this approach rather than court the likes of Johan Cryuff and Louis Van Gaal. Then again maybe this is a smokescreen measure that will see Dalglish take up the role, leaving the two to fight it out for the managerial hot seat.
As far as I can tell the Premier League elite implements their directors of football as a glorified scout/agent, tasked with bringing in new transfers and handling contract negotiations. At Liverpool Damien Comolli was criticised for his role in squandering large sums of money on the likes of Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing, despite the fact that each acquisition had come off the shopping list handed to him by Dalglish. Down at the Bridge, former manager Andre Villas-Boas repeatedly confirmed that he did not have much say in ‘club transfers’, notably the recent purchase of Kevin de Bruyne.
Let us not forget the apocalyptic mess that surrounded the Dennis Wise, Kevin Keegan and Mike Ashley love triangle down at Newcastle. Not only did that special period involve some truly terrible signings but it also caused Keegan to walk, cost Wise his reputation and forced Ashley to attempt to sell the club by any means necessary. Whatever the current set-up on Tyneside with Pardew and co, it deserves huge praise and further consideration by other clubs.
The key reason for the varying levels of success in this country compared with other nations is the classification of the personnel in charge of the team. In Spain for example, the managers or rather head coaches are historically there only to prepare the players for matchday, they are often referred to as ‘Entrenadores’, which translates as ‘Trainers’. In England, the managers take on the majority of the workload, ranging from picking the team, training the players and sealing the transfers. Perhaps this established principle needs to be addressed before the directors of football can be incorporated effectively.
If our nations powerhouse clubs or rather their foreign owners remain intent on emulating the success of European teams by incorporating their philosophies, then it is vital that they make the right appointment. If the manager and the director of football aren’t singing from the same hymn sheet, then the only noise you’ll be able to hear over the commotion will be the boos from the stands.
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