Do we need a Director of Football?

Right, so Bayo and Shved weren't Rodgers/Congerton signings. That much is clear.

What they will be though is names that were put forward to them - one was by Moravcik who in some capacity is "scouting" for Celtic, and whoever else (probably some contact) who recommended Shved to the scouting team.

Rodgers/Congerton most likely saying naw, scouting team who've maybe went to see these guys saying they're good, Rat and Mong still saying naw, so Lawwell or whoever it is in senior directorship has decided to sanction the signing - much the same as when Gordon was signed at the behest of Stevie Woods before a manager was in place, and much the same as Moussa was pretty much wrapped up - or at least heavily into contract talks with Celtic before Fraud arrived.

We already have - whoever it may be - someone at the club operating pretty much as a DoF anyway, so there's really no point in spunking out more cash for someone who isn't NEEDED.

 

Which is my point, a CEO whose expertise is in accoutancy, finance and negotiating sponsorship deals should not be making an arbitrary decision on a football player, despite the fact that some of them may have been successful in the past. It's just illogical.

Aye and they're doing it horrendously. The recruitment is a shambles, we've just been bumped out of the Champions League for a 2nd year running, we have first team coaches with very little experience, a medical & conditioning team that does not seem to be getting to the issue of why we have so many recurring muscular injuries within the squad.

It's clear it's needed. Our de facto DOF is doing an awful job from a position of unprecedented strength.

If his remuneration was cut down to a level in line with other clubs at our level, we could easily fund a DOF; not to act under him but to work on a level with him. Lawwell works on what he's good at, schmoozing and getting good sponsorship deals, improving the infrastructure of the club etc. and the incoming DOF who understands football and isn't making decisions with the primary focus on the PLC, deals with all matters relevant to the football club.

 

I’m curious as to how much transparency there is with the bolded.

Is the five year plan published, even in a limited format if it’s deemed a confidential plan?

Do regular shareholders like fans get access to this?

 

@Seán Mac D

I’m not going to multi-quote everything you’ve contributed here. Simply just to say, you’re bang on point with each point you made. Couldn’t agree more!

 

CELTIC could avoid suffering further costly failures to qualify for the Champions League group stages in future by appointing a director of football to oversee the long-term strategy of the club, it was last night claimed.

The Parkhead outfit crashed out of Europe’s premier club competition in the third qualifying round for the second season running on Tuesday evening when they slumped to a 4-3 loss to CFR Cluj in the East End of Glasgow.

The embarrassing 5-4 aggregate defeat means the Scottish champions will once again miss out on joining the likes of Barcelona, Juventus and Manchester City in the tournament proper as well as a windfall of well in excess of £30 million.


The Celtic hierarchy - who only appointed Nicky Hammond as a replacement for Lee Congerton on a temporary basis after their head of recruitment joined Brendan Rodgers at Leicester City in the summer - have been heavily criticised for the transfer business they have conducted in the close season in the aftermath of the result.


Neil Lennon left Boli Bolingoli, the £3.5 million signing who had been brought in to take over from Kieran Tierney at left back in June, on the bench following his error-strewn display in the first leg in Romania last week.


He fielded midfielder Callum McGregor out of position because he had no other player who specialises in the role available and his team failed to perform anywhere near as well as they had in the opening seven games of the 2019/20 campaign.


Dr Dan Parnell, a senior lecturer in sports business at the University of Liverpool and a board member of the Association of Sporting Directors, acts as a consultant for a number of Premier League teams.

The vast majority of clubs in the top flight down south – including Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester City and Spurs - have adopted the continental model in recent years and have a figurehead who oversees all aspects of off-field football activity.


Dr Parnell believes that installing a director of football with a wide-ranging remit – which covers player recruitment, the development of young prospects coming through the academy, right up to the appointment of the manager and his coaching staff – could help Celtic to achieve consistent success in Europe as well as domestically going forward.

“I think there is a massive shout for Celtic to have a sporting director,” said Dr Parnell. “The benefits of having someone in a broader role is that whoever is there is a custodian for the long-term and can help to oversee all recruitment of talent, not just playing talent, but the first team manager and his backroom staff as well. That means there is more consistency. That should be the principle around it.

“From a Celtic perspective, all the signs would point towards getting somebody in to provide that long-term strategy. They have to look at what the Celtic way of doing things is. That should influence what kind of manager they recruit, how the academy feeds into the first team and everything that goes around it.


“Is there somebody at the club who does that now? Nicky Hammond is an excellent candidate. However, whoever it is, they need to be given a greater responsibility beyond recruitment. Is there somebody with the skill set to do it now? For sure. There are men and women out there who are more than capable of going and absolutely smashing it at Celtic without doubt.”


The absences of Mikael Lustig at right back and Tierney at left back were keenly felt by Celtic against Cluj on Tuesday evening – neither Hatem Elhamed or McGregor performed with the same level of assurance or authority as those former players in those key positions and the defence leaked no fewer than four goals as a consequence.

The departure of both Rodgers for Leicester back in February and then Congerton to the King Power Stadium three months later undoubtedly made strengthening the Parkhead squad more complicated this summer.

But Dr Parnell feels that clubs can prepare for the loss of key personnel many months in advance if they have a director of football in situ.

“The Premier League clubs I work with have been planning for the first game of this season since well before Christmas last year,” he said. “They have been lining players up, identifying targets, having conversations, drawing up contracts. It is quite manageable, it isn’t rocket science. These are just intelligent, organised, diligent, collaborative people doing it really well. What did Celtic have in place to protect them for the future?


“There are Premier League clubs who are very advanced and have a structure in place that can cope in the short to medium term even if the Director of Football goes because plans are in place. There is communication and people understand the strategy for the first team, loans, the academy, contracts, deals.”


Dr Parnell feels Rangers, who appointed Mark Allen as their first Director of Football back in 2017, have taken the correct approach by handing the former Manchester City academy director responsibility for all areas of their football operation and will reap the rewards of that in the seasons ahead.

“Mark appears to have the responsibility and authority of a sporting director at Rangers and I think they need that to genuinely deliver success,” he said. "You can have the best academy at producing talent in the world, but none of the players will ever make it if they aren’t given the opportunity.

“You need consistency at executive level, at director level to say ‘we need to be putting these kids in’. They need a loans programme to give them opportunities to get ready for the first team and to sell them if they aren’t going to make it.”

- don’t usually post articles but this one was published by The Herald today.

 

It's not a middle man per se, it should be someone that has the knowlege and authority from the board to negotiate contracts, for new and existing players, be having regular meetings with the management team, scouting network and reporting back to Lawwell. Lawwell should only be brought into negotiations if they are outside set parameters. For example if the fee is going to be over £10m (random number), or it is going to take us over the stipulated budget, and even then it should just be to get his ok.

The problem at the moment is that PL is involved in all contract negotiations, and buying players. He is also out of the country a lot with his various European organisation responsibilities etc. which means things don't happen quickly. Ideally the DoF would take on many of the duties PL currently performs, leaving him to deal with things like getting better sponsorship deals, and increasing our finances from non football related issues, as well as campaigning to make sure we are involved in any revamped European competitions, that sort of thing.

The problem is I can't see Lawwell giving up that amount of control, even if it is for the betterment of the club.

 

Totally, agree a good post and yes I can't see Lawell giving up that amount of control.....

 

Yes!!

Lawwell is clearly a man who lives by the Balance Sheet. Never mind the fact we have to invest more, he is incapable of getting the best out of what we currently spend.

Ideally Lawwell would do one but I can't see our support sustaining the level of opposition it would take to remove him - there's too many happy clappers who don't see the bigger picture.

However, with Lawwell remaining as CEO, it would make sense to let him focus on the Infrastructure and Financial side of things while appointing a DOF to control transfer negotiations, scouting, contracts etc. Lawwell's only involvement would be setting the initial budget (which would still be an issue but with fans becoming more frustrated season by season and Huns getting closer, he is going to have to loosen the purse strings sooner rather than later).

IMO the DOF would ideally be someone with playing experience or previous DOF experience and a good contact book across the UK and Europe - we need someone who is innovative and will build a strategy that allows us to compete with bigger clubs and always be on the front foot when it comes to snapping up rising talent.

 

I still can't believe John Park is sitting at home with his finger up his * unemployed and we haven't offered him a job yet! What a * * show we have turnt into!!

 

No, we need a proper scouting system...i read the other day we got 1 scout usa....1 scout europe and 3 in uk..........no wonder we ain't finding any * players.....3 scouts in the uk ffs.

 

Didn't he get employed by Falkirk? I read something about that in one thread here.

 

Apparently he was offered a job by the guy wanting to take over Falkirk, but was waiting for proof he had the finances in place for the takeover, and is serious about owning a club, before taking it. I haven't heard if that has gone any further or not yet.

Edit: I'm not convinced he would take a job with us again anyway, I think there were rumours he was getting frustrated with Lawwell not giving the red light to the best players he was finding, and was instead picking the ones that were the cheaper options. That sort of thing doesn't reflect well on the scouting team as they get the blame a lot of the time by people assuming those were their primary targets all along.

 

Well, that reeks of the usual Lawwell way of doing things. I wish he gets sacked and Park brought in as DoF.

 

do we need a director of football ?

weve apparently got one

 

On a work trial which will undoubtedly have limitations on medium to long-term changes he can make, with a handful of scouts and a Chief Exec with either an incapability or unwillingness to finalise deals for his targets.

It's the equivalent of asking a guy to put a fire out in a burning building and handing him a Super Soaker.

 

sorry i was being facetious we have mr celtic "lawwell" running all aspects of the club who only gets his * felt by desmond on very rare occasions

hes at the heart of all our fuckups to do with the football side of things managers, players and transfer dealings

undoubtedly he does a good job on his specialism accountancy and bringing money to the club but his reach is far too all encompassing nowadays and its suffocating and showing up his obvious weaknesses

we need a proper football man to do the director of football, ashamed we are allowing that clone club across the city stealing a march on us by appointing their own back in 2017, we have as we always seem to do when we get ahead in scotland, we start taking things for granted and start acting all billy big bollocks we should have had a DOF years ago but its obvious lawwell or desmond dont want to cede control over to someone they cant trust/control

cause a director of football could show these miserable * up

 

Surprised this hasn't been mentioned before now but It would be ironic if we ended up with a DOF who turned out to be pretty much the same as Jock Brown, he was basically a dof back in the day (Fergus). Those of us who can remember him will shudder I expect.

 

It’s been clear for a number of years that we need a DOF.

 

Bring back the guy who spunked a * load on lennon Thompson harts on Sutton... Those were the days

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Reckon you either go with someone Lenny knows or maybe look to the Bundesliga
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/steve-walsh/profil/trainer/7851
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/christian-heidel/profil/trainer/6055
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/axel-schuster/profil/trainer/8220

If we'd been looking in the bundesliga we may also have found this guy:
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/julian-nagelsmann/profil/trainer/8402