Over the last few months, redwood32 has posted some extremely thought-provoking stuff on the subject of the club's organisational structure (mostly related to the Academy, Reserves, and first team set ups). the issues involved have been discussed on various threads over the length and breadth of RAWK, but several people have suggested that instead of going off topic on the youth/reserves thread, we create a thread to focus on the 'club structure' issue, debate the alternatives available to the club, and figure out what exactly we'd like to see, and the issues we'd like considered.
So here's the thread - an invite to post your thoughts on what we need in our club structure, because chances are that things will change at some point in the not-too-distant future, and with that change will come an opportunity to get things right for the long-term.
The question, then, is how should the various components of our club interact? Who should be responsible for what? What should each department or role reasonably expect from the other departments or roles?
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To get things started, i'll post my own thoughts on the subject as best i can. it's hard to do without the full facts, and you get the feeling that, even within the club, people don't really understand how the club's processes work... however, there has been a fair amount written on the subject recently, so that'll do for a starting point, and maybe this thread will enlighten a few of us on how things are operating at the moment. Fingers crossed we can concentrate on the real problems, rather than their symptoms (and it's my honest opinion that long-term unresolved conflict is either the symptom of an underlying structural or procedural problem, the result of negligent stewardship, or some combination of all three). But in the interest of being all new-age and open-minded about things, let's blame a process, not a person, and think about how things could be improved to meet our long-term goals.
This passage from redwood32 is the one that stands out in my mind, as it pretty much sums up my views on the subject...
It's more of a structural issue for the club than an on the pitch problem, but it's just as important. Without a solid framework in place, we'll never have the continuity within the club. With each managerial change we'll potential have to start over again with the Academy and Reserves, which is obviously no way to work an efficient club.
Having debated this issue with redwood32, that line of reasoning really led me to modify my stance a little. Formerly I'd been firmly in the camp that says "if it's good enough for Man Utd and Arsenal, and it's good enough for LFC in the bootroom years, then let's give Rafa the authority he needs to make the whole process work end-to-end."
Now that's all well and good... but what redwood32 made me realise was that, even if he were to perform a flawless job and exceed all of the fans' expectations, politics at LFC right now are such that even then, his job would not be secure.
In an ideal world (Christians song pipes up in my head...) the manager would get unfettered backing and discretion to run the club as he saw fit. With a talented man at the helm, and firm guidelines on what he's free to do within the scope of his responsibility, we'd put ourselves in a strong position for the long-term. Get the manager on as long a contract as possible and make sure he has a clear stake in our success.
On reflection, it's clear that these things are a pipe dream given the current state of play behind the scenes at the club. In and ideal world, we'd have a clear vision that states how we're going to return to the very pinnacle of world football. It would be imposed from the top down, with the owners signing off on the projects needed to make it happen, and ensuring stable and sufficient funding is in place for those projects.
The person who represents all key stakeholders, the chief executive, would ensure this vision is clearly communicated and implemented in all areas of the club's operations. When inevitable conflict arose in the implementation of the vision in different areas of the club, the chief executive would intervene to ensure clear communication between all parties, mediating where needed to find workable compromises and process solutions... always acting in the best interest of the club... doing his best to make balanced decisions based on best practice.
The manager, meanwhile, would have unfettered discretion (just as the other creators of dynasties had) within clearly defined boundaries - namely footballing matters.
But all that's just plain fantasy. We all know there are a few flies in the ointment, so to speak. In fact, a few proper Brundleflies, to say the least. Dave Usher sums this up nicely.
Despite our healthy position in the table, the club is in an absolute mess behind the scenes. Pretty much everybody in senior positions is at odds with each other. Gillett and Hicks, Rafa and Parry, Parry and Hicks, Gillett and Rafa... this is common knowledge.
It's no big secret and it's been covered openly in every major news outlet, hasn't it? And not only that, they've played it out in public interviews and press conferences for us all to see with our own eyes. It's not the Liverpool way and so forth... but aside from all that, the tension and conflict never gets resolved to anyone's satisfaction. At the levels described in the quote, we're talking about our owners, board members, and senior management; however, the same chronic tension has existed for years at the operational levels of the club's management - for example, Academy staff have a hard time working with the staff at Melwood, and Melwood staff have a hard time working with staff at the Academy. For me, as I said above, these things are symtpomatic of structural 'dis-ease'. Things aren't set up right at the moment.
Even despite the fact our boardroom is about as stable as a marble in the deciding stages of a kerr-plunk match, it's clear our club structure isn't working particularly well.
So what are the options?
Personally I like redwood32's suggestion - the idea of someone respected coming in to liaise between the two parties - a new head of football development at youth level who puts the Academy staff under the right amount of pressure to perform, and agrees the standards (technical ability, physical power and fitness, and attitude - all three of those aspects are measurable in this day and age) as well as being experienced enough to know when someone's a player full stop. Kenny would be the dream choice for me, because he's capable of doing the diplomatic side. Rafa respects him, the Academy staff respect him, and he's strong enough to act in the best interests of the club and refrain from taking sides and get involved in powerbroking.
What do we need long-term? We need to make sure our local and global scouting is getting the right players in for the right value, so why do we currently have two independent scouting set-ups with different budgets and different guidelines on the kind of attributes we're looking for in our players?
Having recruited the players, we need to ensure we have an agreed syllabus in place for the coaching, to make sure the maturing players are developing the kind of things needed to cut it at the top level. The senior coaching staff should have an active input into this set-up and sign off on it each season, and everyone should be agreed as to the plan for the coming year before it starts - the plan should work towards the stated goals for the year, and the goals for the year should map to the long-term project, and the club's overall vision.
At the same time, clear assessment criteria and measurements should be put in place to objectively assess when a player's capable of making the next step, whatever that step may be. The process shouldn't be too rigid, as we're not talking about robots here, but there should be a set of minimum non-negotiable standards that, again, both departments have an input to, and both departments sign off on each season.
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There's no real flow to this post - just a few ideas cobbled together to get the debate started - but here are some random thoughts and some reading on the subject that might get the grey matter going a little...
Dave Usher's article in issue 65 of "The Liverpool Way" fanzine (for those of you who haven't seen it, it's available for purchase here:
http://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=231&osCsid=f21bc480b6b2ae1e7aa9ecd605359963 ).
I personally think we should look at success stories in other countries and in other sports - for me the British Cycling set up is the best example right now and I recommend the book "Heroes, Villains and Velodromes" for starters, because it tells you a lot about how they fucked the structure up a few times before they got it right, and put the right staff in place (most prominently Liverpool's own Chris Boardman) with spectacular results.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Heroes-Villains-Velodromes-Britains-Revolution/dp/000726531X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228516962&sr=8-1Here's last week's piece from the Echo where Peter Robinson gave his views on the Academy project, and explained some of the thinking behind the decisions taken at the time the Academy was set up.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2008/11/27/ex-liverpool-chief-peter-robinson-s-verdict-on-anfield-academy-100252-22350574/Then the related Tony Barrett piece in the Echo:
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-fc/liverpool-fc-news/2008/11/28/figures-paint-worrying-picture-of-liverpool-s-kirkby-academy-100252-22361007/Last but not least, here's an overview article from World Soccer on the subject:
http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=225239.msg5038785#msg5038785 And here's a transcript of the article...
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December 2008
Technical DifficultiesGavin Hamilton and Nick Bidwell
Tottenham's appointment of Harry Redknapp marks a return to the traditional English style of football manager. But at most European clubs, the technical director remains a central figure. Gavin Hamilton and Nick Bidwell report.
Technical directors, directors of football, sporting directors: call them what you will. They have been getting a bad press in England recently.
All the major managerial changes so far this season - at Tottenham, Portsmouth, Newcastle and West Ham - were triggered by a breakdown in relations between the managers and their respective technical and sporting directors. The continental system, so it has been argued, cannot work in England, where managers need complete control.
Alan Curbishley walked out on West Ham, angry at the influence of sporting director Gianluca Nani, the italian brought in by the club's new Icelandic owners. The sale of George McCartney to Sunderland proved the final straw for Curbishley, who complained "I was no longer in complete control of transfers."
It was a similar story at Newcastle, where relations between Kevin Keegan and director of football Dennis Wise deteriorated rapidly, culminating in Keegan's departure shortly after the sale, against the manager's wishes, of James Milner to Aston Villa.
At Spurs, Damien Commoli, the Frenchman axed as the club's sporting director along with coach Juande Ramos, was portrayed as the fall guy in their poor start to the season. The arrival from Portsmouth of Harry Redknapp, a man with a history of clashes with technical directors at his old club and Southampton, marked the end of shared managerial structure at White Hart Lane.
Traditional styleSpurs chairman Daniel Levy, the man who had persevered wtih the technical director model even when Frank Arnesen jumped ship for Chelsea in 2005, acknowledged that Redknapp's appointment marked a return to a more conventional way of running the club. "Now is the right time for us to move back to a more traditional style of football management at our club," Levy said. "We don't need a sporting director because clearly Harry Redknapp knows his way around the transfer market."
Although there are many examples of successful technical directors throughout the English football pyramid - John Rudge at Stoke, Nicky Hammond at Reading, Lennie Lawrence at Bristol Rovers, Dario Gradi at Crewe - the traditional English manager is back in vogue.
Redknapp was quick to assert: "The chairman will do the deals, but I'll pick the players. I wouldn't let anyone else buy me players."
Critics of the technical director system - and there are none more vociferous than redknapp, who found himself working with Sir Clive Woodward at Southampton and Avram Grant at Portsmouth - cite the examples of Mr. Ferguson and Arsene Wenger as proof that they have the upper hand.
The shadow of Ferguson and Wenger hangs heavy over the English game. The two most successful and long-standing managers in the Premier League are also the most powerful. Ferguson is famously the first person to arrive at United's Carrington training ground every morning; Wenger is known to take an almost obsessional interest in the activities of the unrivalled global scouting network that he has built up over the past decade at Arsenal.
In essence, both Ferguson and Wenger perform the role of technical director themselves, leaving day-to-day coaching to their assistants. Until last year Wenger also had David Dein to negotiate transfers.
But what will happen to United and Arsenal when, eventually, Ferguson and Wenger step down?
Historically, technical directors developed on the continent to provide continuity, especially at clubs where the president and board of directors were elected by the fans, and so subject to upheaval on a regular basis.
Traditionally, continental coaches came and went, often on 12 or 24-month contracts. It was left to technical directors to handle youth development, scouting and recruitment, often of the next coach.
When Levy introduced the technical director model to Spurs, he was attempting to introduce a different approach rather than a specific structure. These is no such thing as a typical continental club structure, though the classic relationship is a triangle involving the coach, technical director and president. The devil is in the detail, with the relationships varying from club to club.
Former playersTechnical directors are not a homogeneous breed. Just as every club is different, so is every technical director. Most are former players, but some have different backgrounds. Juventus sports director Alessio Secco was originally the Turin club's press officer before taking on more responsibility during the calciopoli scandal and eventually ending up as the club director with overall responsibility for the transfer market.
In Germany, the classic model is a technical director with lots of autonomy in terms of general footballing set-up, academy structure, and player recruitment. Club presidents tend to stick largely to financial matters. Klaus Allofs (Werder Bremen), Andreas Muller (Schalke), Dietmar Beiersdorfer (Hamburg) and Horst Heldt (Stuttgart) are all good examples of effective technical directors in the Bundesliga.
German technical directors operate more as team players than in the past, when 'Little Napoleons' such as Schalke's Rudi Assauer and Bremen's Willi Lernke ruled the roost. Now, they bend over backwards to be collegiate.
Same wavelengthObviously it works best when the coach and sports director are on the same wavelength. That's the case with Heldt and Armin Veh at Stuttgart and with Allofs and Thomas Schaaf at Bremen. When the coach and director are at loggerheads - such as Thomas Doll and Michael Zorc at Dortmund - the result can be disastrous.
"The head coach already has a massive workload dealing with the professionals: the preparatory work on the training ground, picking the team, choosing the right tactics, talking to the press," explains Stuttgart's Heldt.
"My job as team manager is to assist him in any way possible, to do my best to ensure he has the best possible squad, geared for success on the pitch.
"For the most part my brief is to bring in the players we think will make us stronger, to talk to those guys we feel should move on and basically be a front man for the club, on hand to deal with the media.
"I'd call it contacts and communication. I'd like to think I can offer 16 years experience as a professional footballer, familiarity with Stuttgart - who I used to play for - and a lot of contacts in the game both home and abroad. I'm not there to leave my shadow over the coach or to pose as some sort of threat to his future - just to help him along the way.
"The important thing is to respect your coach, to share a sporting philosophy. He has his responsibilities, I have mine. But we have the same goal for the club."
It's a similar situation in Holland where the technical director assumes responsibility for the youth department, scouting and transfers. He is expected to meet, as far as possible, the technical needs of his head coach, to relieve him of the administrative burden.
Danny Blind and Marco Van Basten seem on the same page at Ajax. The word is that PSV technical director Stan Valckx and new coach Huub Stevens are not.
In addition to the technical role, technical directors sometimes assume a more political role as a buffer for criticism of the president, especially at clubs where the president is elected by the fans or where he plays an active role in player recruitment. Here, they tend to exercise less influence. Marco Branca is an example of this at Internazionale, where Massimo Moratti pulls the strings. Across town at Milan, Ariedo Braida is the sporting director but vice-president Adriano Galliani and organising director Umberto Gandini play a much more important role in transfer dealings. Generally, Italian coaches tend to accept whatever raw material they are given by directors.
In Spain, Real Madrid's sporting director Pedrag Mijatovic tends to follow the lead of president Ramon Calderon, though he does not get on with coach Bernd Schuster. At Barcelona, coach Pep Guardiola and technical director Tkixi Beguiristain have a certain input but it is president Juan Laporta and finance director Ferran Soriano who identify transfer targets and negotiate.
Generally, it is at the smaller clubs where technical directors have real freedom to operate.
Sevilla's Monchi, Villareal's Jose Manuel Llaneza, Pantaleo Corvino at Fiorentina, Udinese's Pietro Leonardini, and Pierpaolo Marino of Napoli are among the best in the business.
In contrast in France, the technical director system is being disbanded. Club presidents are increasingly hands on and the omnipotent technical directors of the 1970s and 1980s, such as Pierre Garronaire at Saint-Ettiene and Robert Budzinski at Nantes, are in retreat. The directeurs sportifs used to be a one-man band. Now their power base has been split up, with separate heads of recruitment, youth development, communication, and marketing.
At champions Lyon, all dealings in the transfer market are the personal fiefdom of president Jean-Michel Aulas, aided by his special advisor Bernard Lacombe. Remy Garde is theoretically their head of recruitment and coach Claude Puel was promised a greater say in the incomings and outgoings when appointed last summer. But it's still Aulas calling the shots.
Paris Saint-Germain have no technical director. Instead they have a 'recruitment council' made up of Alain Roche and Eric Pecout, who consult with coach Paul Le Guen then advise president Charles Villeneuve.
At Marseille, technical director Jose Anigo is not thought to be particularly influential, well behind chairman Pape Diouf and forceful coach Eric Gerets, who likes to get his own way.
No job for lifeThe situation is also changing in Germany, where technical directors can no longer rely on a job for life.
"I'm not sure a technical director is someone to provide a club with continuity," says Stuttgart's Heldt. "That may be the case with Uli Hoeness at Bayern, but football is a results-driven business and these days, if results are not forthcoming, a director of sport is just as likely as a coach to be made the scapegoat."
Increasingly, responsibilities are being divided up. "Im not concerned with the nuts and bolts of budgets and sponsors," admits Heldt. "We have many qualified experts in those fields. With us, everything is very clearly structured. We have a two-headed board with president Erwin Staudt and finance chief Ulrich Ruf. I am responsible for the sports side alongside chief scout Herbert Briem and sport manager Jochen Schneider, who's the man for contracts."
Other clubs are moving in the opposite direction, adopting an English style structure. This summer, Felix Magath took over as Wolfsburg's coach, chief executive, and technical director. "It's a wide-ranging and demanding remit but one I'm perfectly competent to carry out," he insists.
"Having one man in charge of the sporting set-up can work as long as that person knows exactly what he's doing. I'm pleased to have sole responsibility.
"It's the ultimate in motivation. If things go badly, there will be no-one else to blame. The buck has to start and finish with me. It's my philosophy on the line, my decision-making. I choose the players I want and working witin the confines of the budget I have, I set out to bring them in. It's effective in the sense that you choose a clear direction to go in. You are not bogged down by endless discussions."
However, the system is not set in stone, Magath concedes. "When I was first approached by Wolfsburg, they wanted me as their director of sport, but as I couldn't see a coach I really wanted at that time, I took on the job. In the near future, if we succeed in turning Wolfsburg into a club of real European quality, I will step aside from one or two of my roles. In essence I see myself as a coach."
And Magath the diplomat is quick to pay tribute to his colleagues. "Am I all-powerful heere? I don't think so. I have a good team around me, people who make their own important contribution. No way can I do everything on my own. For example, my management assistant Pablo Thiam is a big help. He knows the pro environment, speaks more languages than me, and is very intelligent."
Last summer, new Monaco president Jerome de Bontin sacked chief executive Marc Keller and director of sport Jean-Luc Ettori.
De Bontin's intention was to beef up the role of coach Ricardo, who now goes by the official title of general manager.
"The management of this club was not cohesive enough," said De Bontin. "A new structure made up of myself, Ricardo and is assistant Jean Petit - who spent most of his career here - is much more rational. We work together closely, especially in transfer dealings.
"There is a common vision, a unity of purpose which we may have lacked in the past. The hierarchy at the club is clearly established. I believe the three of us represent a good mix of coaching knowledge, commercial know-how and innovation. Monaco has not been delivering results-wise in recent years and a change had to occur.
"I want to be an omnipotent president, interested in all areas of the club, but there has to be sound delegation too, with good people working in the administrative, marketing, communication, technical and medical sectors. Football is big business these days. Specialists are a must, provided they apply themselves to a common goal. Ricardo is more than intelligent enough to identify the players he wants and work to sign them. He is bright and adaptable and it is right that he has a lot of scope in this area. We are always open to new ideas. For example, I'd like to have a technical advisor on board, a former Monaco player who can bring his knowledge and feel for the club to the question of recruitment."
Stength of personalityUltimately, it comes down to strength of personality. Louis Van Gaal dominated Ajax in the 1990s as an English-type manager. Matt Busby became Manchester United general manager in 1969 when he stepped down as manager, but his continued presence at the club created enormous problems.
"Anything can work in football as long as the responsibilities are clear and accepted by everybody," says Wenger.
Perhaps it is as much a question of semantics as anything else. Historically, English clubs have always had directors of football. They were called chief scouts. But the cahnging nature of the global game has changed that.
"The irony," Levy admitted, "is that if we had called the sporting director by a different name, chief scout or chief exectutive, we would not have had the negativity about it."
In the current economic climate, few clubs can afford to pay off staff in the manner of Tottenham's disposal of Commoli, Ramos, et al. Youth development will become increasingly important and the technical director role is likely to remain for some time. The arrival of more and more foreign owners in England is likely to mean more technical directors not fewer as new owners are unlikely to want to defer to an all-powerful manager.
The recent upheaval at Spurs prompted the English media to argue that a "continental" management system cannot work in England.
But as Levy says: "It wasn't about scrapping the structure, it was about finding the right individual. If we had brought in a different type of manager, a foreign coach for instance, maybe the structure would have stayed.
"It might yet return."