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Last week, I wrote about why it’s in everybody’s best interest—including for data analysts—for teams to think intelligently about how their overall process before they hire performance analysts and paying gobs of money for tracking data.
However, it’s impossible for clubs to do this unless they first recognize they have a problem. One idea I thought might help is for clubs to ask themselves a series of questions about what they have tried in the past, and how well it has worked.
This may seem stultifyingly obvious, except it’s apparent in the way many teams still behave that they have never considered that doing things the same way over and over again and expecting different results might not be such a good idea!
However, admitting you have a problem is only the first step. The hard part involves figuring out exactly what needs to change and why.
For most of you reading this, the root problem at most dysfunctional clubs will be obvious—teams should maybe not hand over every aspect of the footballing side of the business to a single person—the manager—only to sack them after two seasons, wipe the slate clean, and begin again.
But this idea is still very difficult for even the wealthiest, most established clubs to grasp. If you need evidence, look no further than Manchester United and Ed Woodward. The executive vice-chairman has, at the very least, recognized the team needs a technical director to oversee football operations. But by handing Ole Gunnar Solskjaer a three-year contract before hiring a TD, Ed has clearly misunderstood the entire point of the role, which includes hiring a manager in-line with the clubs long-term objectives.
It’s easy (and fun?) to dunk on dear old Ed, but there is a real problem here: how do non-football people, with experience mostly at the business side of things, successfully hire someone to not only lead the football operations side but to potentially build it from scratch? And not for one or two seasons, but 5-10 years?
I would offer two possible routes. The first is to hire one of the various consultancies in football today that exist today solely to help clubs address this issue. More on this in a later newsletter.
The second route is to methodically interview potential candidates (or perhaps their current staff) by revealing in detail their long-term business objectives, and asking them how they might best support these objectives on the football side.
So, for example, perhaps a League One side’s business objective is break even for three consecutive seasons, and improve attendances at the ground by x amount each season. Promotion to the Championship is something to hope for, but based on recent years’ results, is likely not a realistic goal, and should not be attempted in the short-term at the risk of the club’s long-term financial stability.
Ideally, a club in this case would want a director of football who will be savvy in the transfer market, but willing to hire a more dynamic, aggressive manager to give reasons for local fans to start attending home games again. There are a lot of details that will need filling in here. The idea, however, is that accomplishing these goals requires a close partnership between the business and footballing operation; executives should have a marketing strategy in place to help support the DoF or TD’s approach to management, training, player development and recruitment.
This may seem awfully boring and corporate and depressing and not very football-like, but the reality is that lasting glory must be established on a stable foundation and a single, coherent club philosophy understood and adhered to throughout the club. Otherwise, a glorious promotion season might be followed in three years by relegation, and, if the club has tried to spend their way into maintaining their higher-league status, financial collapse.
This is not to say that hiring a technical director or director of football is a panacea. A club may already feature these roles, yet find that their current approach is not working as intended. In this case, they may need to see that their business and footballing sides are working in alignment. The point is for a club to have clearly defined objectives, clearly defined roles, and coherent, clearly defined strategies both on both sides of the football/business divide.