What exactly does the sports director in the football club do?

Data from over 300 sports directors (or similar positions), including their sports background and experience.

The key is, what do we want to find out what makes a successful sports director?

I. How the Sports Director integrates into the club structure

Although the role has received a lot of attention, its definition is still vague among different clubs. The titles "Football Director", "Sports Director", "General Manager", "Chief Football Officer" and "Technical Director" are essentially different titles for the same position, but there are indeed differences in the specific expectations of the position among clubs.

While the role of a head coach or manager is well defined, the responsibilities of the athletic director are not static. Depending on the level of the club or the league, the infrastructure built around this role can vary considerably. Some clubs have a single director located in the center of the system; while in others, multiple roles may share responsibilities.

"In Germany, you might have a sports director, a recruiting head, a technical director, and then an executive who only carries out sports affairs," said former Hamburg and Leverkusen sports director Jonas Bolt. "When you add coaches, sometimes problems arise because it's not clear who has the power or responsibility and how to clearly assign those roles."

Football is developing so fast, not just in the Premier League, which also adds uncertainty about the specific responsibilities of the sporting director. As Comoli said, “the structure of the club is changing.”

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These characters have been around much longer in Germany, Italy and Spain than in England," he continued, "but I won't distinguish between countries-I think the industry is changing throughout the industry."

Brentford is a good example of two roles working together in the Premier League. Football Director Phil Giles is responsible for team management, planning and renewal, while Technical Director Lee Dex is in charge of the recruitment department. Together, they work to achieve the common goal of ensuring that the best players wear Brentford’s jerseys—or, as Giles put it, “My job and Li are to complete the basics of the transfer.”

When looking at the number of sporting directors (or similar positions) in major European leagues, the structural differences begin to become more obvious.

As Comoli stated, such positions have been established in Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, and each club in each league has at least one such position. In France's Ligue 1, the proportion of clubs with a sporting director position is the lowest, with 15 of the 18 teams setting up this position.

As the Premier League gradually caught up in recent years, 19 of the 20 teams last season had at least one sports director (or similar position), an increase from 13 in the 2016-2017 season. Of the 20 teams, eight (40%) spread their structures across two staff members, similar to Giles and Dyx in Brentford.

2. The road to the sports director

The past experience of the sports director may vary greatly.

Back to Giles and Dex, who received a PhD in statistics and gradually promoted to head of quantitative research before entering Smartodds, a company owned by Brentford's major shareholder Matthew Benham, while Dex was athletic director for low-level league team Bury, with a coaching background and served as an assistant coach for Carlisle United before becoming technical director of Brentford. The analysis of

Traits outlines the four most common "prototypes" that the athletic director follows before obtaining the position:

Head Coach: Responsible for the overall strategy of the club's departments such as first team staff, recruitment, loan, youth training, medical care and sports science.

Recruiter: Lead scouts and transfer strategies to identify players who fit the club's game mode. This usually includes people with backgrounds in data and analytics.

(Former) Players: Transfer their industry knowledge and experience on the court to off-court. For example, Liverpool's Richard Hughes, West Ham United's Mark Noble and Crystal Palace's (now left) Doug Friedman are all former first-team players.

Executor: Responsible for club football business, such as coordinating player transactions, contract negotiations and employee replacement.

Importantly, these prototypes are not mutually exclusive. Rather than classifying specific sports directors into specific categories, consider the diversified paths as a Venn diagram where skills acquired from their respective backgrounds have many overlaps.

"I want to add another way, that is the youth training path," Comoli said. "For example, Dan Asheworth came from a youth training background. Sassuolo returned to Serie A this season, with its sports director Francesco Palmeri being the club's youth training manager for nine years before taking the position. He is also a former player."

This view has resonated throughout the industry, and the club's youth training camp is seen as an ideal training base for senior management.

"I think the job as a youth training manager can be a useful step in preparing to become a sports director," said Johannes Spoels, athletic director at Southampton. "You basically make the same decisions, just have less financial impact. Sometimes the youth training manager manages more employees than I do, but the impact of decisions becomes more significant as the position rises."

Athletic directors often get into this role after having work experience in other positions within the club. For example, Norwich City's sports director Ben Napper worked as a loan and path manager at Arsenal before moving to the Championship team.

However, data companies' analysis shows that 17% come from non-technical roles or are completely out of football.

"What I can do is increase the probability of success as much as possible," said Spoels. "As athletic director, our responsibility is not just to sign players or coaches, we can also build a club culture, make sure every department is in its best shape and keep moving to a higher level."

"Saturday's three-pointer was just the end result of all the efforts behind it."