FOOTBALL has invented a wonderful job for people who want all the power without the pressure. It is called sporting director.
The sporting director assembles the squad, chooses the targets and decides which players are worth £50million.
While the manager must turn them into a team, win matches and explain why it has all gone wrong.
When the experiment fails, it is usually the manager shown the door. A neat arrangement, particularly if you are the sporting director.
At , Jason Wilcox is under scrutiny while boss must find a way to get results with the squad at his disposal.
The question is familiar: Who is responsible for the when the man recruiting the players is not the man picking the team?
’s departure at Old Trafford exposed the problem.
He wanted to be Manchester United’s manager, not merely their coach — and with the hierarchy.
His successor inherits the same fundamental question. Carrick can coach, motivate and organise but he cannot conjure players out of thin air.
Modern football needs structure. No sensible club should leave every transfer decision to one individual, however distinguished his CV.
Managers leave; player contracts remain. Rebuilding recruitment every time a manager departs is not a strategy. It is a very expensive revolving door.
But the opposite arrangement is equally dangerous. A sporting director cannot demand authority over recruitment and then disclaim responsibility when it fails.
I know how this can end. At , Tim Steidten arrived in 2023 to modernise recruitment but clashed with , who had delivered three successive top-ten finishes and a European trophy.
Moyes quite rightly wanted a say in signings; Steidten favoured a director-led approach. By May 2024, relations had collapsed so badly that from first-team areas.
Moyes left that summer. arrived, the club spent heavily and the dysfunction resurfaced. in January 2025; him out.
Two managers, two breakdowns, one sporting director.
At some point, you have to stop blaming the man in the dugout and start questioning the man responsible for recruitment. The irony is sporting directors are supposed to provide continuity. failed to achieve it.
Recruitment is not successful because signings look impressive on a private jet or a spreadsheet predicts their resale value will rise.
It succeeds when players improve the team, suit the manager’s requirements and deliver on the pitch.
Look at . They have sold some of their finest players for enormous fees, yet keep finding ways to compete near the top of the table.
Their secret is not a succession of lucky guesses but a recruitment model built on data, long-term planning and a clear footballing philosophy.
Tony Bloom’s much-discussed algorithm helps identify talent but numbers alone cannot build a team.
Human judgement still matters. Brighton demonstrate what happens when recruitment is a key strategy, rather than a power struggle.
Sporting directors and managers need complementary responsibilities, clear authority, a shared vision and mutual trust.
If they disagree fundamentally about recruitment, the owners must resolve it before the training ground becomes a battleground.
United is a reminder that grand titles and organisational charts cannot substitute for sound judgement.
West Ham shows changing the manager does not necessarily solve the problem.
Football loves talking about projects, long-term planning and modern structures.
All are sensible. But a structure is only as good as the people operating it — and somebody must be accountable for the outcome.
A sporting director cannot claim credit for assembling the squad while leaving the manager to carry the can for their shortcomings.
Nor can a manager demand control of everything and blame others when his choices fail.
There is room for both jobs. There is no room for two competing football departments in the same club, each convinced it knows best.
When the relationship works, the club win. When it fails, supporters pay for the mistakes and owners discover that the most expensive position in football may be the one nobody can quite explain.
So, the real test of a sporting director is not how many players he signs or how cleverly he describes his philosophy.
It is whether he builds a club that can succeed beyond the tenure of any one manager.
Anything less is just an expensive way of moving the blame around.
