David

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Recruitment strategy starts with an honest read of your place in the market. If you can't win auctions against richer leagues, pretending you can wastes money and time. Take Juventus. Before a game against Lazio, Chief Football Officer Frederic Massara gave DAZN an unusually candid assessment, as transcribed by TMW: "We're living through a particular moment in the international market, and the situation has got worse for Italian football. We are less competitive than other leagues, we have to make different investments. We have to get used to being more creative to find solutions that work." It names the constraint, and it says the answer is a different method, not a bigger cheque. But "creative" has to mean something specific, or it becomes a slogan. In practice it can mean: - Identifying players earlier than richer rivals. - Working undervalued markets. - Developing your own. - Loans with options, and structures that spread cost. Saying it publicly also resets what owners and fans expect. Watch out for: - A target list written for the club you used to be. - "Creative" used to excuse a failed window after the fact. The market-position check, before every window: 1. Which players can we actually win against the clubs bidding with us? 2. Where does our edge come from, if it isn't money? 3. Which of those edges do we have staff and data to execute? 4. Tell the owner plainly, so targets match budget. 5. Review after the window: did we win where we said we could? A director who names the constraint can build around it. One who hides it ends up explaining failed bids. What is your club's real edge in the market, stated in one sentence without the word "money"? @juventusfc

There's no good moment to sack a coach. Whatever you choose, someone will call it cruel. But the order of priorities is clear. Once the decision is made, the coach is owed the truth, in person, before anyone else knows. What he isn't owed is a "let's talk about everything" meeting after the decision is final. That feels kind. It isn't. Then, when you appoint the replacement, set expectations in public on day one: what he's for, and how long he'll need. Espanyol's sporting director Monchi explained exactly this after Manolo González was dismissed following a cup exit to fourth-tier Sestao River. Criticised for telling him in the dressing room, Monchi said: "Would it have been more honest to sit down with Manolo, talk about everything, and twelve hours later tell him that everything we'd been talking about was a pantomime?" On the new coach, Eder Sarabia, signed to 2028: "I also understand, and I've weighed this, that Eder, because of how he plays, needs more time than other coaches." The complication: El País reports the decision was effectively taken the previous weekend and delayed because president Alan Pace was dealing with a crisis at Burnley, his other club. That's El País's reporting, unconfirmed by the club. If right, the no-pantomime principle applies to those days too. The club says Monchi reports to CEO Mao Ye Wu and to Pace. The sources don't say what the owner's role in the final call was. For the director: 1. Tell him yourself, first, in person. 2. Don't stage a review whose outcome is fixed. 3. State the new coach's caveat on day one. 4. Own the timing, including any delay. For the owner and board: 1. The clock starts at the decision, not the announcement. 2. In a multi-club group, don't let another club set this club's calendar. 3. Back the timeline your director gave the new coach, or say now that you won't. How long does your club let a coach work after the decision is made? @RCDEspanyol

When one sporting director leaves, more and more clubs aren't replacing the seat. They're splitting it. On 11 Oct 2026 Genoa announced François Modesto as Chief of Football and Stefano Melissano as Direttore Sportivo, after Diego López left. (López's move to Burnley as sporting director is still reported only, per the Burnley Express.) The split is clear on paper. Modesto gets "the strategic management and direction of the technical area". Melissano takes first-team sporting direction, working with the technical staff on selection, resource management and transfer operations. Strategy above day-to-day recruitment. Same week, same pattern. In Belgium, Antwerp CEO Sven Jaecques said on the record that Marc Overmars would not be replaced by one sporting director. Per Voetbalkrant, the job is being split into scouting and recruitment, sporting coordination, and a role close to the squad. And the opposite move: Chelsea's reported co-sporting-director exit (BBC, no club statement as of 14 Oct) would delete a seat and absorb the work. Split in two, split in three, or delete. None works without a written decision map. What I take from it as a director: 1. Before either person starts, write down who owns the shortlist, the fee and the veto. Two titles without that map create two vetoes. 2. Strategy without recruitment rights is a consulting seat. Recruitment without strategy is a shopping list. 3. Put the org chart into the contracts. Who reports to whom on deadline day? 4. Deleting a seat is also a model choice. Own it in public. Which of those would you want in writing on day one?

Some coaching hires come with a story already attached. Sandro Wagner left Augsburg after a public row and later admitted he had "galloped away" with "one or two statements." Hannover 96 hired him anyway — contract to 2028, brief to stabilise and return to the Bundesliga "soon" (Sport1). His first week is a useful case for any director who hires a coach with baggage. Before the debut (Express, 8 Oct): "For now I'm really just a guest." On his own brand: "This is our football here. We're not a one-man show... 96 comes first." He settled the goalkeeper with a date: Leo Weinkauf until winter, Pascal Loretz in the cup. And he named the tension: "I know the business always wants to see results quickly... processes need a certain amount of time. And we're trying to move between those two worlds." Debut: 0–3 at Magdeburg (10 Oct), fourth competitive defeat in a row. First goal started with a risky pass from the keeper he'd just named. Wagner on Sky: "I want us to make mistakes." "We need a culture where people dare to try things." Sport1: "Our theme is development... The basics have to be there first in the 2. Liga." Three things to own before day one. The persona: agree how he presents himself and talks to media. The time horizon: what "soon" means and what progress looks like between. The error culture: which mistakes you'll defend when week eight arrives. Give the coach concrete review dates, the way he gave his keeper until winter. Decide the first-bad-result protocol in advance. Silence leaves the coach's words as the only line in the story.

On 23 October, Vasco's members vote on selling 90% of the club's SAF to Marcos Lamacchia's Almirante Participações. The council approved it on 6 October, 175 to 26. If members say yes, Vasco's football executive reports to a new owner. All 20 Série A clubs now have a paid football executive. Who sits above them varies: Elected presidents. 12 of 20 clubs are still member associations. Santos votes on 5 December, and one candidate has said he'd dismiss the executive. SAF investors. Clearer authority, but not automatic stability. Botafogo's SAF control is in court. Vasco's previous investor fell into trouble and the club took control back through the courts. A parent company. Red Bull Bragantino is wholly owned by Red Bull. And the seat turns over. In 2026 Chapecoense, São Paulo, Botafogo and Athletico changed executives. Fluminense lost Paulo Angioni, who died on 12 September; no official successor yet. The lesson: map the power before you sign. 1. Ask who can sack you. 2. Check the election calendar. 3. Read the shareholder structure and any court cases. 4. Check pending sales and votes. 5. Negotiate a change-of-control clause.

He nearly joined Bayern in 2021. He says he is glad it fell through. The start Timmo Hardung was born in Heidelberg on 8 November 1989. He never played professionally. He was team manager at TSG Hoffenheim from 2015 to 2019. Then he ran the licensed player department at RB Leipzig for two years. He joined @eintrachtint in July 2021 to lead the same department. On 1 July 2023 he became sporting director. The post had been empty since Bruno Hübner left in 2021. The work He rose without a playing career. Team manager, then licence department, then director. Each step earned inside the building. His high point as department head was the 2022 Europa League win and Frankfurt's first Champions League qualification. Leadership Hardung nearly went to Bayern. When Julian Nagelsmann moved from Leipzig to Munich in 2021, the plan was for Hardung to join his staff. He had worked with Nagelsmann at both Hoffenheim and Leipzig. He turned it down. "Mein Weg hätte eventuell zu Bayern führen können, ja. Aber, so wie sich Dinge eben fügen, am Ende Gott sei Dank nicht," he said. My path could have led to Bayern. Thank God in the end it did not. His reason is the tell: "Es hat sich am Ende von den Aufgaben her nicht so dargestellt." The job was not right. He added he is not someone who goes somewhere just to be there. He is also honest about why forwards get the credit. "Strikers are always more shiny," he says. "It's the toughest part of our sport to score a goal, so obviously they draw a lot of attention. But I think we managed to improve and develop a lot of players." Recruitment He had a hand in Hugo Ekitiké and Omar Marmoush. Ekitiké came on loan from PSG, then permanently for €16.5m. Marmoush arrived free from Wolfsburg. Frankfurt have made close to £300m selling forwards over six years. The caveat He is a number two. Krösche is the board member and the public face. Some inside the Frankfurt fanbase question whether Hardung has the standing for the role, and Bild reported his position was scrutinised after 2025-26. Krösche decided to keep him. Assessment No playing career, no shortcuts, no noise. He picked the right job over the biggest one. That decision looks better every year. To read more about leadership, player development & recruitment, follow me: @undervalu

Parma decide every single day which academy players train with the first team the next morning. Not at the end of the season. Every day. Academy director Mattia Notari explained it on 14 Oct 2026: "alla fine di ogni giornata, valutiamo quali ragazzi possano essere aggregati alla prima squadra a livello operativo il giorno successivo." At the end of each day they assess which youngsters can join first-team training the next day. Who's in that conversation matters. Notari names the CEO Federico Cherubini, first-team sporting director Alessandro Pettinà, chief scout Massimiliano Notari and the club's pathway manager, Federico Crovari. That last role is the one I'd copy. Parma created a "pathway manager" to own the last stretch of the academy journey and connect players "sia con la prima squadra sia con il mondo professionistico italiano e all'estero" — with the first team and with the professional game in Italy and abroad. Notari calls it "un collante trasversale", a cross-cutting glue. The gap between U19 and a first professional contract is where most clubs lose players, because nobody owns it. Parma gave it an owner. He's also candid about the risk: excessive expectations have tended to "crush" developing players, so the club brought in psychologists and pedagogues. What I take from it as a director: 1. Give the transition phase a named owner. 2. Make promotion a short, repeatable decision, with first-team decision-makers in the room. 3. Treat expectation management as a performance task, not a soft extra. None of it needs a big budget. It needs a calendar and clear accountability.

A mid-season coach change is judged twice: once by the scoreboard, and once by the board and director who made it. The second only works if agreed before the first game. Set the first-fortnight criteria together, in advance: visible change in structure, intensity, selection and dressing-room buy-in. Then an early defeat is evidence, not the next panic. Two Austrian Bundesliga clubs that had just changed coach both went out of the ÖFB Cup on the same night. @FKAustriaWien lost on penalties to Hartberg in interim Maximilian Uhlig's debut. He switched to the 4-2-3-1 he uses with the Young Violets. He spoke of a strong first 30 minutes and a "relapse into old patterns" after the break. Midfielder Eggestein: "Max was able to get something moving." Sportvorstand Tomas Zorn had already said the winter review rests on daily work and behaviours, not results alone. On that standard, the board has something to read. @WolfsbergerAC under returning coach Manfred Schmid, lost 1-0 at second-tier Hertha Wels, his second straight 0-1. Schmid had said the problem is not system but "willingness". My analysis: a "firefighter" return optimises for speed, so judge intensity and willingness. WAC's president and sporting chief haven't commented. The lesson for the board: agree the markers before the appointment and hold to them after the first defeat. If a cup exit triggers a fresh review, the criteria were never the real test, and the next coach will know it. The lesson for the director managing up: write the markers down before the first game, and report against them, not only the score. The week-one checklist: 1. Structure: visibly changed? 2. Intensity: higher? 3. Selection logic: explained? 4. Dressing-room response. What will your board judge your next coach on in his first fortnight?

A bad start creates pressure to sign someone. But in-season signings are usually expensive, often not better than what you have, and they can disrupt a team still learning to play together. A clear rule helps: only sign a genuine upgrade, and plan who leaves as well as who arrives. The principle: the sporting director owns the squad he built, in public, and sets the bar for in-season changes before the pressure peaks. And the board should hear that some problems, like habits, cohesion and a crowded schedule, aren't solved by the market at all. Olimpia Milano's sporting director Daniele Baiesi did exactly this after a EuroLeague start below expectations and a defeat to Virtus Bologna from 19 points up. Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport, as reported by Basket Magazine: "Responsibility for building the team lies with me." On the market: "To make a change, there have to be players available who are improving options. Here we don't change for the sake of changing." On what signings can't fix: "with a schedule that doesn't allow time to work, and creating habits takes time." And: "everyone looks at incoming moves, but at that point I'm also thinking about outgoing ones." The sources say nothing about ownership's view of the start or the market, so I can't describe their role. As analysis: he took the build on himself, which shields the coach; set an upgrade-only bar; separated market problems from team problems; and made the market two-way. The January window is football's version. For owners and boards: 1. Before an in-season signing, ask in writing why he's better than who he replaces. 2. Ask who leaves. Every arrival changes someone's minutes, role and budget. 3. Recognise problems the market can't solve. For directors: 1. Say "the build is mine" early. 2. Set the bar before the pressure peaks. A stated rule is harder to break. What would a signing have to beat to get into your squad this January? @OlimpiaMI1936

Clubs hire chief executives with long job descriptions and vague expectations. The CEO arrives, tries to do everything, and two years later nobody can say whether he succeeded. Agree a one-sentence mandate and a short list of priorities before he starts, and let him say them in public. The principle: the mandate should be short enough to repeat. What the job is for, how it links to the sporting side, and the two or three priorities that define success. That gives the board a test. Cardiff Rugby just did this. Announcing Jon Flatman, currently CEO of Barnsley FC, as chief executive from January, the club said he was "the outstanding candidate in a competitive process led by the board", with Jamie Muir staying on as managing director. Flatman's own words: "My mandate is clear – to build a resilient commercial foundation off the pitch so we can fuel a fierce, competitive and ultimately winning team on it." And: "Taking the club back into private, independent ownership and resolving a long-term future at Cardiff Arms Park are the two major priorities," alongside the pathway and "direct and accountable governance". The sources don't say who sits on the board or how the Welsh Rugby Union, which rescued the club, was involved in the choice. As analysis: one line links business to sport, two priorities are judgeable, and keeping the managing director reduces the restart risk. For owners and boards: 1. Write the one-sentence mandate before the search ends. If you can't, he can't deliver it. 2. Limit the priorities. Two big ones are easier to judge than ten. 3. Make the sporting link explicit in the job description. For sporting directors: 1. Read the CEO's mandate closely. "Fuel a winning team" is a commitment; ask what it means for the playing budget. 2. Get the pathway into his first statement. It's easier to defend later. Could your board write your CEO's mandate in one sentence? @Cardiff_Rugby @BarnsleyFC

In clubs and federations the chair is often the least understood role. He doesn't run the organisation day to day and usually doesn't make the final executive calls. But he sets the board's agenda, chooses what to challenge and decides how hard to push the executives. A new chair who arrives with no stated view tends to inherit the last regime's decisions by default. The principle: a new chair should say, before he starts, what he'll review and how he sees his role. If he's arriving into a contested structural decision, he should say whether it's settled or under review. The Welsh Rugby Union's incoming chair, Lyndon Faulkner, did exactly this in his first interview, with BBC Sport. The union plans to cut Wales's professional teams from four to three in 2028, and recently posted an £18m loss. On conditions: "I wouldn't have taken the job with those conditions or if it were me needing to be a yes man. That's not me." On his role: "review everything we've got going on, challenge it, probe it." Would he reverse the region cut? "Absolutely – and that's on anything I see." On influence: "it would be foolish to not take consideration of what I say." On the money: "they are worrying." BBC Sport sets out the structure: he won't be part of the executive and doesn't make the final decisions, but will chair the board and "wield major influence". Football boards get new chairs too, arriving into a stadium move or a sporting director's mandate. For boards and appointing bodies: 1. Appoint the chair with no conditions on live decisions, and say so. 2. Write the chair's lane down: board, executive, advice. 3. Give a new chair's review an end date. For executives and directors: 1. Prepare the case for your structural plan as if the decision were new. 2. Bring the numbers early. A surprised chair asks what else he hasn't seen. 3. Agree how the chair's influence works before the first disagreement. What would your next chair say is open for review? @WelshRugbyUnion

Removing a director mid-season is the easy part. The three decisions that come with it are harder: why now, who runs recruitment, who the coach answers to. The @Colts show how. They relieved GM Chris Ballard of his duties six games into his 10th season, at 2-4, in the last year of his contract. 1. Why now. Owner and CEO Carlie Irsay-Gordon: "Making this change during the season was a deliberate decision." Then the line most boards forget: "this decision does not change our goals for the season." A director on an expiring deal is judged on this season. The club lives with the next five. Even an honest person makes long-term calls on a short-term clock. If the director is going, change before the window. 2. Who runs recruitment. No interim GM was named. Per the club statement as relayed by Colts Wire: "Ed Dodds will be leading our personnel department for the remainder of the season." Dodds had been assistant GM since 2018, and Ballard once credited him with revamping the department's meeting schedule. The department went to the person who already ran the machine. 3. Who the coach answers to. "Shane (Steichen) and football staff outside of personnel will report to ownership." Not to the deputy. A caretaker shouldn't decide the coach's future, and the permanent director should arrive with that call still open. The risk: a coach reporting straight to the owner can pull the owner into football calls. Keep it temporary. Mid-season exit checklist: 1. Explain the timing in the statement. 2. Say what doesn't change. 3. Give the deputy the department, not the title. 4. Split the lines: recruitment to the deputy, coach to the board, with an end date. If your director left tomorrow, who runs the window, and who does the coach report to?

Good process raises your hit rate. It doesn't make the expensive misses cheaper. So put the most process on the biggest bets. Chris Ballard is the worked example. The Colts relieved him as GM in his 10th season. His method was sound. From a 2020 Combine interview: "We always evaluate for us: how are we building the team, what do we need, does he fit our criteria? ... We scout from inside out; we'd rather people have to match what we're doing." The market tells you price. Your model tells you fit. A left-back isn't "a good left-back." He's a left-back for this system, with these duties in and out of possession. He named what it depends on: "the longer you're together... the more accurate you're gonna be scouting." The corollary: role profiles belong to the coaching staff. Change the coach and the criteria go stale, admitted or not. And the method didn't protect him: 72-82-1 in the regular season, no playoffs since 2020 (NFL.com). NFL.com's analysis says the big bets, the Sauce Gardner trade and Daniel Jones' multi-year deal, "haven't panned out." My read: directors get judged on two or three premium decisions. In football, the centre-forward and the record fee. Watch out for: - Scouting for a coach who has already left. - A big miss with no pre-deal file. You can't tell bad process from bad outcome. An inside-out checklist: 1. Role profiles from the game model, shared with every scout. 2. The game model as a club document, so a coaching change doesn't reset it. 3. Coaches in the evaluation room. Challenge, then align. 4. Watch players under pressure, not highlights. 5. The bigger the fee, the fuller the written file: fit, medicals, character. When your biggest signing misses, can you show the reasoning from the day you signed him?

A title is not a remit. Before you hire a number two, write one sentence: what they lead, and what they share. Two baseball clubs rebuilt their front offices on one morning, both around development, in opposite directions. @Orioles kept president of baseball operations Mike Elias and named Jared Banner GM. Per MLB.com, Banner "will lead the organization's player development, coaching and performance efforts, while also partnering with Elias on strategy, staffing and talent acquisition." That's the remit sentence. Elias had held both titles. Banner's career is development: Boston, then running the Mets' minor league system, then Cubs VP of player development and assistant GM. The reset moved people too: Sig Mejdal no longer oversees analytics, and the VP of player and staff development left. @Athletics went the other way. Owner John Fisher named Taylor Smith, 31, president of baseball operations: "Taylor stood out for his acute understanding of the game, especially in the areas of measuring player performance and player development." His background is R&D, with the Rays and Red Sox. Whether the A's hire a GM under him is unclear, per MLB.com. The lessons: - Split the job when one person holds two. Strategy at the top, development to a development specialist. - Name the capability you hired the top person for, in public. Staff learn what will be valued. - Judge a specialist hire by the next appointments. A data-led director needs deputies strong where he isn't. Watch out for: - Handing over a remit without saying what happens to the people who held it. - Forgetting your development staff are other clubs' shortlist. Banner was also a candidate in the A's search, per MLB Trade Rumors. Could you write your number two's remit in one sentence today?

The person who knows every rival squad is already thinking like a sporting director. Most clubs leave them in a silo. Take John Beake. @Broncos announced his death at 87. He was their GM for back-to-back Super Bowl wins. His route: he coached first, as an offensive assistant with the Chiefs and Saints. He joined Denver in 1979 and "held multiple personnel roles — including director of pro personnel and director of player personnel — before assuming the role of general manager." The Broncos say he "helped to trade for" John Elway in 1983; his exact part isn't on the public record. Pro personnel evaluates players already in the league: every rival roster and contract, who is available and at what cost. That feeds trades and free agency, the moves that change a team fastest. In football, it's the head of market scouting, who already thinks in prices, timing, availability and fit. The ladder still works. Seattle made Willie Schneider, its director of pro scouting, an assistant GM. Baltimore moved its director of college scouting into a role working "across college and pro scouting," in GM Eric DeCosta's words. When this applies: any club whose succession plan is "look outside." Watch out for: - A specialist with no exposure to the academy, budget or board. - Rewarding a great scout with more scouting, not a wider job. A development plan for your market specialist: 1. Time with the academy and the loan pathway. 2. A seat when the budget and the coach's contract are discussed. 3. Lead one negotiation from first call to signature. 4. Rotate across first-team and youth recruitment. Who in your department could do the director's job, and what haven't they been allowed to see?

Write every candidate dossier as if it will be read in court or in the press. One day it might be. The worked example: a court unsealed a one-page Korn Ferry memo, "Brian Flores -- Strengths and Weaknesses," prepared for the Las Vegas Raiders during a head-coach search (Front Office Sports; ESPN). It came out in Flores' racial discrimination lawsuit against the NFL and several teams. Labels first. Flores' lawyers allege the memo leans on racial stereotypes and shows retaliation. That is undecided. Korn Ferry disputed his reading. The Raiders declined to comment. What it says, per FOS and ESPN. Under strengths: "Polished and a good presenter despite growing up in Brownsville, Brooklyn." Under weaknesses: "He can fool you with his polish upwards." An unnamed "long-time senior team executive" is quoted: "He may have changed since, but he was the worst hiring decision we've ever made." The last weakness: "Ongoing litigation may be a distraction." Set the legal questions aside and read it as a hiring professional. A paid assessment is now public, every phrase read by lawyers, journalists and the candidate. It was a head-coach search; applying it to directors is my framing. You commission profiles of coaches, and boards commission profiles of you. A defensible dossier: 1. Write the role spec first. Judge evidence against each line. 2. Every judgment needs evidence: what happened, when, who says so. 3. Record who an anonymous reference is, and who corroborates it. 4. Ask your lawyers about legal or protected matters before you write, not after. 5. Watch for "despite." It tells the reader more about the writer. 6. A search firm's file is still your file. Player reports are criteria-led and auditable. Shouldn't the file on who runs the department be too?

When a club removes its sporting director mid-season, someone still has to run the market, usually a deputy unsure if he'll get the job. "Keep things steady" isn't a mandate. Sort every big decision into two boxes. Low-regret calls the caretaker makes, like selling an expiring contract. Long-horizon calls that wait for the permanent hire (the core, the coach, the playing model), unless the board takes them itself, on record. The NFL's @Colts are the worked example. Owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon fired GM Chris Ballard mid-season: "Waiting would only delay the important work that needs to begin now." Ed Dodds leads the front office for now. Box one: in one day the Colts traded two veterans in the last year of their deals, Quenton Nelson to Seattle and DeForest Buckner to San Francisco, for future draft picks. Pro Football Rumors reads it as draft capital "for its next management group". Box two: running back Jonathan Taylor, signed through 2028, stays for now. ESPN's Adam Schefter reports the owner "does not want to trade" him. Reporting, not a club statement. In football terms: box one is the player whose contract is running down; box two is the core and the coach. The lesson for owners and boards: write the two boxes down on day one of the interim. Own your vetoes on record. Set the sale sign-off route before the window. The lesson for the interim director managing up: if the board hasn't written the list, draft it and ask for sign-off. Document every sale as assets handed to your successor. The caretaker checklist: 1. Remit in writing. 2. Sign-off route for sales. 3. Owner vetoes on record. 4. Options left flexible for the successor. Does your next caretaker know which calls are his?

A head coach will not set their own limits, so someone above them has to. The sporting director owns the head coach's load the way the performance department owns player load. The board should expect that duty of care to be designed in advance, not improvised after something goes wrong. @FCBayern said head coach Vincent Kompany was taken to hospital after collapsing at training and is stable. The club has given no diagnosis, and I make no claim about the cause. Sportvorstand Max Eberl said the club's biggest task "will be to protect him, to some extent from himself". Separately, speaking about the job in general and not about Kompany, @BVB coach Niko Kovač said: "You actually take everything home. None of us can say: we close the office door, get in the car and leave it all here." @fckoeln René Wagner: "We are all professionals, but in the end we are also human beings." What the sources don't say: how any of these clubs manage the head coach's workload day to day. My read: if coaches can't switch off on their own, the protection has to come from the structure. The lesson for a board: ask your director who owns the head coach's load, and what the plan is if the coach is suddenly out. The lesson for a director managing up: build that plan and show it to the board before you need it. The coach-load checklist: 1. An assistant who can run sessions and match day. 2. Decisions that stay with the head coach, agreed in advance. 3. Protected recovery days in congested weeks. 4. Travel and media load managed. 5. The desk as a buffer against outside pressure, not an amplifier. Who at your club is responsible for the head coach's limits?

If your club has to make money from its academy, it will sell a player it would rather keep. The choice is when you say so, who hears it first, and whether the board and the sporting side tell the same story. Say it early and calmly, while the player is still developing. @borussia is the worked example. Seventeen-year-old Wael Mohya, at the club since he was seven, scored and assisted in a win at Stuttgart. Two days later Head of Sports Rouven Schröder said on SPORT1's Doppelpass: "You can't stop the fact that you have to make transfer surpluses … That's not always what the fan wants to hear." And: "We're in contact with him, his parents and his agency … he won't play for Borussia Mönchengladbach his whole life … We'll take the steps one at a time." No price, no buyer, no sale. Coach Alexander Blessin carried the other half: young players go through dips, "and we help him with that." The board context: Schröder is not a managing director. CEO Stefan Stegemann reported a loss of about €4m for 2025, the second in a row (Rheinische Post), with transfer income up only slightly. The sources don't say who would sign off a Mohya sale. My reading, as analysis: Schröder was preparing the ground. The lesson for a board: if your budget relies on transfer surpluses, own that publicly rather than let the director absorb the reaction alone. Put the sale threshold and sign-off in writing. The lesson for a director managing up: agree the message with the board before you say it on TV. The selling-model checklist: 1. Sale policy written at board level. 2. Public line agreed before the first breakthrough. 3. Family first. 4. Coach carries the development message. 5. Sales reported to members as the model. Who at your club would sign off the sale of your best graduate?

An academy is a business model resting on assumptions: league rules, budget, the club's level, and whether bigger clubs take your best teenagers first. When the assumptions change, the model should too. That is a board decision: reviewed, explained, then backed long enough to work. @BrentfordFC are the worked example. In 2016 in the Championship they closed their academy. Co-directors of football Phil Giles and Rasmus Ankersen were "asked by the Club" to review it; the statement said youth development "must make sense from a business perspective". In 2022, in the @premierleague they reopened it, citing league and UEFA licensing rules and Brexit. Giles: "we have no intentions of re-opening an Academy with any thought that it should be closed again at any time in future." The club now describes this as its first season at Category One. Academy director David Rainford names his backers: "Matthew Benham has been to some of our U21s games this season. Jon Varney will regularly message me." Benham is majority owner; Varney is chief executive. What the sources don't say: which board members signed off either decision. My read: 2016 wasn't a mistake fixed in 2022. The rules and the level changed. The lesson is how the reversal was handled: explained, public, committed. The lesson for a board: write down the assumptions, set review triggers, and when you reverse, commit for longer than one budget cycle. The lesson for a director managing up: make the board's support visible on the record. The academy-model checklist: 1. Assumptions written down. 2. Triggers: promotion, relegation, rule change, new owner. 3. Board sign-off on record. 4. Public commitment when you reverse. 5. Owners who show up. What is your academy model betting on?