Every time a Club sacks a Sporting Director, the narrative follows a familiar script.

“Wrong profile. Wrong moment. Wrong results.”

And the Cycle begins again.

New Sporting Director. New ideas. New promises to the board.

Six months later? Same problems. Different name on the door.

Here is what nobody says out loud.

The Sporting Director may not be the problem, just like the Coach might not be the real issue.

The problem was there long before he arrived. And it will be there long after he leaves.

The problem is the Structure.

What We Keep Getting Wrong

When a Club underperforms, the first instinct is to change the person at the top of the Football Operation.

It Feels decisive, and impactful (even when stats have demonstrated over and over that the fact that a Coach is leaving rarely means better Performances or results). However, it signals action. It gives everyone, from Owners, fans, or media, someone to point at.

But the uncomfortable truth is that:

A Sporting Director can only be as good as the Structure around him.

In many Clubs globally, the Sporting Director exists as a title, but not always as a function.

He is placed between an Owner who wants Control and a Coach who wants Autonomy.

He is expected to manage Recruitment, Governance, Player Development, Methodology, Players’ Profile, Commercial alignment, Financial Sustainability, and Institutional Identity simultaneously. 

However, with limited Authority, and without a Documented Process to inherit.

Basically, sitting between 2 chairs that require Command.

That is not a Sporting Director Role.

Or shouldn’t be.

Remember the Golden Triangle?
You can read more about it here – https://tactictalks.org/2026/04/23/the-golden-triangle-the-relationship-that-defines-everything-in-football/)

The Three Structural Failures Nobody Talks About

Over the last several years, I have worked across different Markets, from Portugal to the UAE,  helping to build Football Organizations from the inside.

And what I have observed is consistent regardless of the Context, the Budget, or the League:

The Clubs that fail their Sporting Directors share three Structural problems.

Failure 1 — The Structure Is Presidentialist. Fine. The Title Is Modern.

Many Clubs have adopted the language of modern Football Governance without adopting the Model.

Here’s how it goes:

1. They appoint a Sporting Director. 
2. They give him a Title. 
3. They take him to Press Conferences.
4. But the Owner still calls the Agent directly. 
5. The Coach still has unilateral influence over the Transfer window. 
6. The Board still makes decisions in conversations that happen outside any Formal Process.
7. The Sporting Director is informed, not involved.

This is a Governance problem, no doubts about it.

And don’t take me wrong here, everyone can (and does) win, loses and draws in Football.

Regardless the Tactics on or off the field. 

In the Presidential Model, however, the Decision-Making is centralized at the top, and the Sporting Director, regardless of how talented he is, operates in the space between what the Owner allows and what the Coach demands.

That space is rarely sufficient to build anything lasting, at least.

And this way more common than we may think.

In the SD-centred Model, increasingly prevalent in some countries, namely The Premier League and Bundesliga, the Sporting Director is the Strategic anchor of the Football Department. 

He defines the Recruitment Philosophy. 

He manages the head Coach relationship. 

He protects the Game Model across Coaching Cycles.

The result? Simple!
When the Coach leaves, the Model survives. 

When the Structure is Presidential, the chances of the Model leaving with the Coach are definitely greater.
On the other hand, a Presidential Model may create less friction when a Decision is made (taking that one reaches the Decision-Maker).

The lesson: you cannot import a Modern Role into an Archaic Structure and expect Modern Results.
Does it means that is flawless?
Definitely not.

Everyone wins and loses, one just needs to define what fits each reality better.

Failure 2 — The SD Is Evaluated on Transfers and Performances alone.

Here is the most dangerous misconception in modern Football:

That the Sporting Director’s primary function is to buy and sell Players.

Transfer activity is probably the most visible part of the Role, along with the teams’ Performances. 

It is the part that generates headlines, analysis, and public debate. It is the part that gets measured: Market Value, Fees paid, Fees received, profit on Player Trading.

But it is not the most important part.

The most important part is what happens between Transfer windows.

• Does the Club have a Game Model defined at Institutional level, independent of the Coach? 
• Does the Recruitment Process survive a Coaching change? 
• Is the Academy producing Players who Feed the First team with Consistency? 
• Are the Financial Decisions aligned with the Sporting Strategy, or are they in contradiction? 
• Is the communication between the Technical, Medical, Commercial, and Financial Departments coherent or fragmented?

These are Governance questions.

Not visible, though.

And most Clubs do not evaluate their Sporting Director on any of them.

They wait for the next Transfer Window. 

They count the Signings that worked and the ones that did not. 

They make a Decision based on the League Table.

And then they wonder why the next Sporting Director faces exactly the same Problems.

The Evaluation Framework is broken. 

And a broken Evaluation Framework produces broken incentives, which produce the wrong Decisions, consistently.

Failure 3 — The Role Is Undefined. So It Is Impossible to Occupy.

In a study of 88 Sporting Directors across the Big Five European leagues, one pattern stands out above all others:

The titles differ. The responsibilities vary. The Authority levels are inconsistent.

In some Clubs, the Sporting Director leads. 

In others, he advises. 

In others still, he executes Cecisions taken elsewhere.

This in Consistency is a Structural problem that cascades through every decision the Club makes.

Because when a Role is undefined, the person occupying it must constantly negotiate the boundaries of their own Authority.

That negotiation consumes time and energy that should be directed at building the Institution, at creating better Governance Models, on Evaluating Processes, on being proactive towards Risk Assessment and Management, creating different Revenue Streams, etc.

The problems are immense, as it creates ambiguity in every Department.

• Who do the scouts report to? 
• Who approves a contract? 
• Who has the final word on a Recruitment target when the Coach and the Data are pointing in different directions?

Ambiguity, at Institutional level, is truly dangerous.

And that is precisely the environment in which the best Sporting Directors fail, because the Structure they were placed in was never designed to let them succeed.

Or the Club to be sustainable.

What European Football Is Actually Demanding

The conversation about the Sporting Director has evolved significantly in the last five years.

I was having a conversation the other day, and last decades’ evolution has been amazing to observe!

The Profile of the Modern Sporting Director changed significantly.

But also creates a signal that many Clubs are still not reading correctly.

The signal is not about finding the right person, but about building the right Structure for that person to Operate in.

Here is what the some of the most advanced Clubs have understood that many others have not:

1. The SD Must Be a Financial, Commercial, Sales and Marketing Partner. Not Just a Football One.

The Clubs that have suffered most in recent years (Chelsea’s £262M loss in 2024/25, FC Porto’s debt exceeding €500M, the systematic losses across 14 of 20 Premier League Clubs) did not fail (only) because of bad Coaching.

They failed because Sporting decisions and Financial decisions were made in parallel, not in alignment.

A Sporting Director who cannot read a P&L, understand Amortization, or evaluate the Financial implications of a Long-Term Contract is now only half a Sporting Director.

The Modern perspective of the Role requires Financial Literacy as a non-negotiable.

Not to replace the CFO, but to sit across from him as someone that understand the language, and to ensure that every Sporting decision is made with full awareness of its Financial consequences.

The Clubs that get this right build Squads that are both Competitive and Sustainable. 

The Clubs that get it wrong build Squads that may be Competitive for one Season, and then collapse under the weight of commitments made without Financial Architecture.

2. The SD Must Think in Institutional Time. Not Seasonal Time.

Most Coaches think in one Cycle, the current Season.

The thoughts about next Season’s Plan will arrive by the end of the Season, if the Contract and Context allow.

That is their job. 

To be honest, it is the right focus for their Role.

But the Sporting Director who thinks in Seasonal time is Operating at the wrong level.

He must always be Managing three timelines simultaneously:

1. The current Season: Performance, Results, Squad availability. 
2. The next Coaching transition: which, statistically, is closer than most Clubs want to admit.
3. The Institutional Cycle: the 3-to-5-year horizon where real Competitive advantages are built.

This is what I mean when I say Sporting Directors must think 3 Coaches ahead.

Not because Coaches are disposable, but because Institutions are not.

A Club that defines its Game Model in General Terms, its Recruitment Philosophy, and its Development Pathway at Institutional level does not start over every time the Coach changes.

The Coach implements the Model, bringing his/hers Vision to light what is already aligned with the Clubs’ Model.
He, or she, does not own it.

That distinction, simple to state, but extremely difficult to build, is what separates a Club from an Institution.

3. The SD Must Be the Bridge Between Markets.

Here is an observation that comes directly from my experience in the UAE, and that I rarely see discussed in European Football conversations.

Don’t take me wrong, my experience tells me that a great portion of the problems Clubs face are global, not regional – given the proportion of the Market, Budget Revenue Streams and Positioning, brands and companies (aka Clubs) are really much facing similar challenges.

However, Emerging Markets are adopting the Sporting Director Model faster than many mature Markets.

Mainly because they do not have Structures to defend, and they were privileged to see the mistakes of different Models.

Observe how Clubs in Saudi are structuring their Clubs, and you will realize my thoughts, even outside the PIF sphere of influence.
Projects as Qadsiah FC or NEOM SC are really interesting to observe.

In the UAE, the way Clubs as Al Ain, Al Jazira, Sharjah FC or Shabab Al Ahli (among others) have made significant progresses, pushed by the UAE Pro League and the UAE FA that opened the door for Private Investment into Clubs, and prized by United FC (Coached by Andrea Pirlo) being Promoted to the top-tier in the country.

This means, a Private Club playing at the top-level for the first time in the country’s history.

When you build a Football Organization in Dubai, or in Riyadh, or in any Market without decades of inherited practice, you are forced (or should be forced) to ask questions that established Markets stopped asking long ago:

• Why do we Structure decisions this way? 
• Why does this Department not communicate with that one? 
• Why does the Coach have this Authority when the Institution should?

These questions, sometime understood as naive in Europe, Produce Structurally superior Organizations.

Simply, because the answer is never “because that is how it has always been done.”

The Sporting Director who has worked across Markets, who has built from zero, who has made decisions without a template, who has managed Players, Coaches, and Institutions in contexts where the rulebook does not exist, brings a perspective that is genuinely rare.

And increasingly, that perspective is what the most ambitious Clubs are looking for.

Because the ability to question inherited Structure, from the outside, is still an underrated skill in Football Governance.

Now: is it all perfect? NO!

Do we have Presidential Models around the region? YES, definitely!

But, as I mentioned before, that alone is not the problem.

It simply comes with pros and cons.

The Profile Is Not the Problem. The System Is.

This leads us here, and I want to be precise about something:

This is not an argument that the wrong people are becoming Sporting Directors; or that the only way to succeed is not to have a Presidential Model.

It doesn’t work like that, in Football.

Many of the Sporting Directors currently occupying Roles across European Football are Talented, Experienced, and genuinely Committed to building something lasting.

The problem is that Talent and Commitment, placed inside a broken Structure, Produce mediocre Outcomes.

As they say “Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast”, and we must remember that constantly.

A brilliant Coach in a dysfunctional Club does not save the Club. 

A brilliant Sporting Director in a Presidential Structure does not transform the Governance, or creates chains of Communication and Command alone. 

A brilliant Commercial Director without Alignment to Sporting Strategy does not grow Sustainable Revenue.

The person matters.
But the System, and the Culture, decides the outcome.

And until Clubs understand this distinction, they will continue to recycle the same conversation.

New name – Same problems – Different Season.

What Needs to Change

Not the people, but the conditions.

Ask the right questions.

1. Define the Role before you fill it. 

• What is the Sporting Director’s Authority? 
• What decisions require his approval? 
• What can the Coach decide independently? 
• What requires board sign-off? 

Write it down. Before the first contract is signed.

2. Look beyond the Score. Evaluate Governance.

• Is the Game Model documented? 
• Does Recruitment survive Coaching changes? 
• Is the Academy pipeline functional? 
• Are Financial and Sporting Decisions aligned? 

These are the metrics that predict Long-Term success.

3. Build the Structure first. Then find the person. 

The sequence matters here, because (as we’ve seen) a Sporting Director placed into an undefined Structure will spend his tenure defining the Structure, instead of building the Institution. 

That is not what the Club hired him for, probably.

4. Close the gap between the Title and the Authority. 

If the Sporting Director has the title but not the Authority, there’s no Sporting Director. 

The Club have a very expensive buffer between the Owner and the Coach.

Either give the Role the Authority it requires to Perform, or be honest about what you are actually building.

Final Thought

The best Sporting Directors in the World are not better (only) at Transfers than everyone else.

They are better at building the conditions under which good decisions (Sporting, Financial, Cultural) happen consistently.

That is a Structure the Club designs, basically.

And the Clubs that understand this distinction are building something that lasts beyond the next Coaching change, the next Transfer Window, the next difficult Season.

They are building Institutions.

The ones that do not understand it will keep asking the same question.

“Why is our Sporting Director not working?”

When the question is different:

“Does our Sporting Director have the Structure to succeed?”

You might be asking now: is this exclusively to the Sporting Director?
NO, absolutely not.

Everyone should be given the tools to succeed.

What is your experience? 

Have you seen Clubs confuse the person with the problem, when the issue was always the Structure they placed him in?

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