The people in charge of transfers at every Premier League club…

Ian Watson

Ever wondered who runs the rule over transfers at Sheffield United? Who identifies potential signings for Fulham? Who does the negotiating for Manchester United as they haggle over the cab fare form the train station? Let us try and clear things up…

 

ARSENAL
It’s been all change at Emirates since last January. Gone is Raul Sanllehi from his role as head of football; head of international scouting Francis Cagigao went as part of the summer cost-cutting, while chief negotiator Huss Fahmy has also recently left. Edu remains as technical director and Mikel Arteta was given more responsibility as part of his promotion from first-team coach to manager. It’s not clear whether they both still answer to Kia Joorabchian…

 

ASTON VILLA
There has been an overhaul at Villa too – Lord knows it was needed. Former sporting director Suso departed in the summer after some extremely ropey recruitment as part of a £135million spend 18 months ago. Villa’s ‘transfer committee’ – as the Birmingham Mail called it – is now made up of Dean Smith, chief executive Christian Purslow and new sporting director Johan Lange. When that trio come to a conclusion over a potential signing, chairman Nassef Sawiris and majority shareholder Wes Edens – billionaires, both – are asked ever so nicely to part with the requisite funds.

 

BRIGHTON
Head of recruitment Paul Winstanley is assisted by Kyle Macauley, who followed Graham Potter to the AmEx from Sweden.  They answer directly to chairman Tony Bloom and chief executive Paul Barber with regards to transfers. Technical director Dan Ashworth also carries plenty of sway, with his arrival coinciding with a change of approach to recruitment, with the Seagulls now longer spending huge sums on untested imports.

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BURNLEY
Burnley kindly and transparently described Mike Rigg‘s job specification thus upon his appointment as technical director in November 2018: ‘Rigg, who has held a variety of high-profile roles within domestic and international football, will head up the process of talent identification and recruitment throughout the whole club, from Academy to first team.’ The former head of player acquisition at Manchester City works with head of scouting Martin Hodge to identify targets that require approval from chairman Mike Garlick and manager Sean Dyche before being pursued. The Burnley Express offered an intriguing insight last January into how the Clarets might operate. It includes a line about how Rigg ‘has produced some ideal players’… that the Clarets could not afford.

 

CHELSEA
Transfers tend to be guided by the advice of whichever poor sap is currently the manager, but their part ends there. Club director Marina Granovskaia, according to Sky Sports, is ‘responsible for player transactions’ and ‘the scouting structure’ but, of course, she is second in this particular three-tier food chain. Owner Roman Abramovich retains the absolute final say on transfers. And everything else.

Petr Cech, in his role as technical director/emergency goalkeeper, is growing his influence, with his personal intervention said to have been crucial in securing Kai Havertz in the summer. The opinion of Scott McLachlan, head of international scouting, also carries some weight.

 

CRYSTAL PALACE
“I felt this was a position the club needed,” said Frank de Boer in August 2017, welcoming the appointment of former Palace striker and manager Dougie Freedman as the club’s new sporting director. De Boer was gone within three weeks, with Roy Hodgson taking his place in the current set-up. But the manager is not quite as hands-on when it comes to transfers as chairman Steve Parish, with recruitment manager Omar Yabroudi, a 31-year-old Emirati who turned down a role in his family’s billion-pound construction business to pursue a career in football, also having a say.

 

EVERTON
Director of football Marcel Brands said when he arrived that Everton would only invest ‘significant’ transfer fees in players between 20 and 26 years of age. Carlo Ancelotti’s appointment, however, seems to have changed that view, with more experienced players recruited under the Italian. UK scouting manager Steve Davis and chief European scout Gretar Steinsson (yes, that one) are responsible for bringing potential targets to Brands.

 

FULHAM
Tony Khan seems to take responsibility for everything, from recruitment to team performances, if his Twitter activity is anything to go by…

The vice chairman and director of football was labelled ‘a clown’ by Jamie Carragher, while Scott Parker insisted no apology was necessary. Khan also happens to be the son of owner Shahid Khan.

 

LEEDS
“He offers and I say yes or no,” explained Marcelo Bielsa earlier this year. ‘He’ being Victor Orta, the club’s director of football, who has ‘the Harvey Barnes hole’ in the wall of his office which he created with his fist after hearing that the Leicester youngster was going to West Brom on loan instead. Angus Kinnear provides a more calming presence in his role as managing director, while all three work for majority owner and chairman Andrea Radrizzani.

 

LEICESTER
After working together at Celtic, manager Brendan Rodgers and head of senior recruitment Lee Congerton were reunited at Leicester in 2019. They are aided – and sometimes abetted – by a team including first-team technical scout Callum Smithson and first-team and Under-23 technical scout Jose Fontes. Director of football Jon Rudkin brokers any potential deals.

 

LIVERPOOL
Ah, that dastardly, Brendan-betraying transfer committee. They have laptops and stuff. Jurgen Klopp has somehow managed to harness the powers of air-con enthusiast and sporting director Michael Edwards, recently promoted assistant sporting director Julian Ward, head of scouting and recruitment Dave Fallows and chief scout Barry Hunter to create a title-winning machine.

 

MANCHESTER CITY
It falls on three men to decide which of the scouting team’s numerous targets should have all the money thrown at them: manager Pep Guardiola, director of football Txiki Begiristain and chief executive Ferran Soriano. The Guardian described it as ‘a fluid, quasi-committee basis’ in July 2015, ‘the continental model of having expendable managers within an over-arching football structure’. But the head coach does get the final say, now more than ever. “There are three or four of us who make decisions on sporting matters in this club, without having 18 executives buzzing around,” Guardiola said in 2019.

 

MANCHESTER UNITED
Hoo boy. Executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward seems to relish the responsibilities of a sporting director so much that he is determined not to hire one. Woodward has the ear of the Glazers and thus the board-sanctioned power to veto any transfers. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and assistant Mike Phelan have plenty of influence over targets, Matt Judge, head of corporate affairs, is tasked with negotiating fees and contracts while the opinion of John Murtagh, head of youth development, is also trusted by those in charge. Underneath them are chief scout Jim Lawlor, head of global scouting Marcel Bout, and head performance recruitment analyst and technical chief scout Mick Court.

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NEWCASTLE
After Chatty Dad and former chief scout Graham Carr stopped feasting on his past successes, he was replaced by the club’s Under-21s scout Steve Nickson in August 2017. Appointed the new head of recruitment, his official remit is to help ‘evaluate all aspects of United’s player recruitment function, including the processes and systems used for scouting players at all levels throughout the club to ensure Newcastle United is best positioned to achieve its targets in this and future seasons.’ So yeah. He works alongside manager Steve Bruce and managing director Lee Charnley, all before Mike Ashley comes along to sh*t on everything by refusing to hand over an extra £10 for the taxi to bring their prospective new signing to the training ground.

 

SHEFFIELD UNITED
The Blades appointed Paul Mitchell – not that one – as head of recruitment/development after restructuring their entire scouting department in the summer of 2016. Chris Wilder, who replaced Nigel Adkins around the same time, and assistant Alan Knill are particularly involved when it comes to transfers – no player is targeted without the manager’s approval. It then falls to CEO Stephen Bettis to iron out all the details.

 

SOUTHAMPTON
The departures of technical director Martin Hunter, executive chairman Les Reed and director of football operations Ross Wilson forced something of a rethink at Southampton. Ralph Hasenhuttl has been working with Matt Crocker since the latter was installed as Wilson’s replacement in the same role in November 2019, though he only returned to the club from a role with the FA a few weeks before Covid struck. Martyn Glover joined from Everton in April 2019 as head of scouting and recruitment. 

 

TOTTENHAM
You wouldn’t have thought that anyone would be able to make themselves heard over Jose Mourinho and Daniel Levy but Spurs have this year assembled a new football board. Steve Hitchen was promoted from chief scout to technical performance director while Trevor Birch arrived from Swansea to become director of football operations.

 

WEST BROM
“They are prepared to get some players,” said Sam Allardyce after he was appointed earlier this month. ‘They’, presumably, being sporting and technical director Luke Dowling, who was appointed in 2018 to work under 32-year-old chief executive Xu Ke, and chairman Li Piyue.

 

WEST HAM
Mario Husillos was brought in as director of football with a remit to “take complete, strategic control of all player recruitment” but he was axed in 2019 with a patchy record at best. At worst, it was a sh*t show. Now, we have to assume that Davids Gold and Sullivan – and the latter’s children – have resumed their previous roles of guiding deals with the help of David Moyes and eager agents. Sullivan says he ‘bullied’ former manager Manuel Pellegrini into taking Lukasz Fabianski and Issa Diop, while all the flops were Husillos’s fault. So maybe he’ll just save himself a few quid on a director of football by trusting his own instincts.

 

WOLVES
Sporting director Kevin Thelwell departed for New York Red Bulls earlier this year, leaving chairman Jeff Shi to assume his duties. Then there’s Jorge Mendes, who Shi referred to as “like a teacher” in 2019. That’s one way of putting it. The extent of Mendes’ influence is not clear – the club maintain his role is advisory – but there is no doubt that the super agent, who had Nuno among his clients, holds considerable sway.

 

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