Became The Premier League’S Youngest Manager [EN]: Chapter 15

15. Reorganization

Burnley Football Club’s 2021 summer transfer market releases and transfers:

– Phil Bardsley, 35 years old. Transferred to Nashville, USA for £100,000.

– Aaron Lennon, 34 years old. Transferred to Vitesse, Netherlands for £70,000.

– Matej Vydra, 29 years old. Transferred to Cruz Azul, Mexico for £2 million.

– Ben Gibson, 28 years old. Central defender. Transferred to Norwich, England for £8 million.

– Ashley Westwood, 31 years old. Transferred to Norwich, England for £10 million.

– Total income: £20.17 million

*Completed before the acquisition by Cartwright Fund

Burnley Football Club’s 2021 summer transfer market acquisitions:

– Maxwel Cornet, 24 years old. Left defender/attacker, right attacker. Acquired from Olympique Lyon, France for £12.75 million.

– Connor Roberts, 25 years old. Right defender. Acquired from Swansea, England for £3.5 million.

– Wayne Hennessey, 34 years old. Goalkeeper. Free transfer.

– Total expenditure: £16.25 million

*Completed before the acquisition by Cartwright Fund

Burnley Football Club’s 2021 summer transfer market loan acquisitions:

– Jacob Ramsey, 20 years old. Central midfielder. Loan from Aston Villa, England (Wage £0 per week. £47 million option to buy).

– Karim Adeyemi, 19 years old. Central/Right attacker. Loan from RB Salzburg, Austria (Wage £44,000 per week. £14 million option to buy + £1 million in add-ons).

– Nicolas Seiwald, 19 years old. Central/Defensive midfielder. Loan from RB Salzburg, Austria (Wage £39,000 per week. £1.3 million option to buy + £1.5 million in add-ons).

– Hannibal Mejbri, 18 years old. Central midfielder. Loan from Manchester United, England (Wage £0 per week. £33.5 million option to buy).

Burnley Football Club’s 2021 summer transfer market net spending: -£3.92 million

Burnley Football Club normalized its financial situation, which had been messed up by ALK Capital, through the sale of a key player, Ashley Westwood, and an emergency influx of funds from the Cartwright Fund.

Having barely closed the August transfer market by reinforcing the squad through loans, Burnley’s board of directors began to handle the tasks that had been put on hold while waiting for the appointment of a formal manager.

The most important thing was to refill the club’s leadership, which had been devastated by the simultaneous departure of ALK Capital and manager Sean Dyche.

First, Helena took office as the chairman of the board of directors on behalf of the owner, Cartwright Fund, and decided to serve as the CEO and the finance director for the time being.

At this point, the club’s finances were being run erratically anyway.

It was right for her to take on these roles, as she could communicate directly with the owner, Cartwright Fund, and somehow secure support.

However, Helena couldn’t even dream of receiving support from an assistant due to the lack of budget, and she officially took on the work of three people, feeling overwhelmed as she received a business card with three titles on it.

In addition, due to Helena’s strong insistence, a simple structure was completed with Mike Garlick and John Banaszkiewicz in charge of operations in non-football areas such as stadium and training ground management, public relations and marketing, and management of general staff.

There was a reason why Helena brought the two retiring directors back to the forefront of club management.

Not only did they provide her, who was new to football, with valuable knowledge, but also the directors of Burnley Football Club were unpaid, so not even a penny of the budget was used.

That was why she enthusiastically persuaded the two men, actively coaxing and convincing them, and even arousing a sense of guilt about the current state of the club.

The problem was the football-related aspects.

With Hyung-min appointed as the formal manager and Arthur Brimlow reversing his retirement to take on the role of first-team head coach, the basics were in place to conduct training and matches on a daily basis.

However, there was no one to handle football-related tasks that occurred outside of matches, such as scouting, analysis, and player recruitment.

“We need to hire a technical director, or preferably a football director,” Mike Garlick said.

While the others nodded, Helena, without any shame, calmly raised her hand and asked, “Mike, what is a football director?”

It was a regular meeting of key executives, scheduled to be held every Tuesday morning unless there were special circumstances.

With the August transfer market closed and the international break for the first two weeks of September upon them, Hyung-min and Arthur, who had given the players a vacation, ignored the conversations, sprawled out in their chairs, their faces showing they were enjoying the break.

Helena’s precious guide, John Banaszkiewicz, glanced at the manager and head coach who were not providing any particular help, and satisfied her curiosity.

“You met Marcel Brands of Everton and Johan Lange of Aston Villa, right? Usually, a football director is someone who oversees all football-related operations at the club.”

John Banaszkiewicz pointed to Hyung-min and continued. “In other words, if the manager leads the team and plays the games, the football director’s role is to support the manager so that he can do his job well. They manage the scouting and analysis teams, and handle overall tasks such as player recruitment and transfers, the negotiations required for them, and even tasks related to the hiring and firing of managers.”

“Then what is a technical director?”

“Well…usually a technical director has less authority than a football director and supports the football director by managing the scouting and analysis teams and being involved in player recruitment and transfers.”

“It doesn’t seem much different from a football director?”

John Banaszkiewicz shrugged at Helena’s question.

“Well, it’s not like it’s a strictly [defined by law or regulation] position. Each club has slightly different structures and roles, and many have both or only one. Some places call them sporting directors.”

“Hmm…then how do they usually fill these positions in the football industry?”

“You can post an ad.”

“Ah, is there a job site for that? Or do you post it on LinkedIn or the club’s website?”

Mike Garlick chuckled at Helena’s question.

“Well, that’s one way to do it, but the journalists are also useful in these situations.”

“The journalists?”

“I mean reporters.”

You might think that the European football scene is incredibly vast, but when you consider the actual number and size of the people involved, it was much smaller and cozier than Wall Street or the financial industry.

Helena was dumbfounded by the flood of applications that came in a few hours after Mike Garlick and John Banaszkiewicz finished talking to a few reporters after the regular meeting.

“No, does information travel this fast?”

“Rumors spread quickly. If you just say a few words in a few WhatsApp group chats, everyone will know. Isn’t it the same on Wall Street?”

Helena, who was lost in thought for a moment, nodded.

“Well, there are rumor sheets and flyers that are quite accurate there too. Of course, if you blurt it out carelessly, you run the risk of being caught by the SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] for insider trading or leaking confidential information. Still, this is quite surprising.”

“In this town, who you know may be more important than what you know or can do.”

Helena shook her head slightly at John Banaszkiewicz’s words.

“I think that’s the same everywhere people live.”

***

For a week, the three directors reviewed and discussed the numerous resumes that came in and began interviewing the candidates who passed the initial screening.

Most of the interviews were conducted via video conference due to the difficulty of traveling because of COVID-19 and Helena’s dislike of wasting time on unnecessary travel.

However, the problem was that there was no candidate that all three of them liked.

The young and passionate candidates that Helena liked lacked the connections and experience in the football world to lead a Premier League club as a football director or technical director.

On the other hand, older and more experienced candidates lacked or had a weak philosophy to lead the long-term rebuilding that Helena wanted.

Decisively, almost all candidates were of the opinion that it was impossible to simultaneously pursue both performance and rebuilding based on Burnley’s poor finances.

Just when the three directors of Burnley Football Club, who were increasingly tired of the seven or eight interviews they conducted every day, were starting to think about grabbing the manager and head coach, who had escaped to the manager’s office under the pretext of devising tactics, and making them share the pain of the interviews, an unexpected candidate applied for the position of technical director at Burnley Football Club.

“Oh, this guy applied to our club…that’s unexpected?” Mike Garlick, who was reviewing the printed resume (Burnley still hasn’t gotten rid of the habit of using paper!), expressed his surprise as he turned the pages one by one.

“Who is it? Is he famous?” Helena, who was sitting across from him and reviewing resumes one by one on her laptop, asked.

“Rather than famous…well, he’s quite well-known in this industry. He’s a friend who used to work at Burnley. He was at Burnley during the Eddie Howe and Sean Dyche era and then went to Liverpool. I heard he’s doing well there because he’s a complete Liverpool fanatic, so it’s strange that he applied to us?”

“Show me.”

Mike Garlick handed the resume to Helena, and she quickly scanned the contents.

The one-page summary contained information about a man who had steadily built his career in football administration and analysis.

Surprisingly, as a Liverpool fan, he started his career as a youth development analyst at Everton, a rival club.

He quickly made a name for himself and was promoted to head of youth analysis in just a few years.

Then, in 2010, he was scouted by Burnley and worked as the head of first-team power analysis for managers Eddie Howe and Sean Dyche for three years.

Finally, in 2013, when Liverpool, a much bigger club, offered him a scout proposal as head of power analysis, he moved to Liverpool, saying that it was an offer he could never refuse, both career-wise and as a die-hard fan.

And then seven years.

He was a key figure in helping Liverpool’s genius sporting director Michael Edwards and manager Jurgen Klopp raise the traditional powerhouse, which had fallen to mid-table, to become one of the top two in the English Premier League, competing with Manchester City, and one of the top five strongest teams in Europe.

The core talent, who is in charge of post-match analysis and first-team player analysis in the analysis team that Liverpool’s current owner, FSG Group [Fenway Sports Group], has painstakingly nurtured, was suddenly applying to Burnley.

Helena slowly read the name written on the resume.

“Jonathan Landris.”