When Arne Slot held his first press conference as Liverpool head coach this summer, something strange happened.
Sitting next to him was another person whose duties they had officially taken up that day, and the answers from sporting director Richard Hughes offered more insight into the club’s new dynamic than anything Slot said at that briefing.
Hughes was behind Slot’s appointment, after all, so it was only right that he came forward to explain the decision. It was unusual, however, as we rarely hear of figures with titles such as his, despite the fact that there are so many of them in the Premier League now. Whereas a decade ago there were only six directors of football or equivalent in the top flight, today every club has one.
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Could this be the start of a new trend where some of the most powerful people in English club football are being held accountable? Over the same period, perhaps only Stuart Webber, formerly of Norwich City, saw his role as a forward-facing responsibility. This is different from the United States, where the off-field leader – usually a general manager – is now almost as public a figure as any coach.
There are a few reasons why the record is different in England, but mainly it is down to the obsession with managers – and the cult that surrounds them. Going back to Liverpool, Bill Shankly was one such “messiah” and in his view directors were “just there to sign the cheques”.
Stuart Webber next to his then Norwich manager Dean Smith in 2021 (Stephen Pond/Getty Images)
What has changed is the origin of the owners. Half of the Premier League clubs have at least some American money behind them. Although these buccaneers or shadowy hedge funds are very rich indeed, they realise (unless it’s Todd Boehly) that ultimately they have no experience of running a football club. So they hire people who have experience and when they are successful, other clubs with greater resources take them away from them, just like they do with players.
That is not the case at Manchester City, where the league’s longest-serving sporting director, Txiki Begiristain, is entering his 13th season at the club. However, 13 of the other 19 director of football appointments at Premier League clubs have only been made in the last two-and-a-half years. The most recent, Paul Mitchell, who joined Newcastle United on July 4, has worked in a variety of senior roles since starting out at MK Dons in 2010, taking jobs at Southampton, Tottenham Hotspur, RB Leipzig and Monaco.
While others like him have occasionally spoken very well to journalists in private or one-on-one interviews, we have never seen one of these directors face a press conference in the same way that a head coach like Slot must.
Six weeks after his introduction, Hughes was no longer sitting at the table next to Slot before Liverpool’s game against Ipswich Town, even though one of the main topics of conversation had always been the club’s failure to sign Martin Zubimendi from Real Sociedad. Of course, Slot wanted the player, but it was Hughes’ job to get a deal done. Instead, we had Slot shielding his boss who had “tried everything to get him”.
It would be understandable if Slot was already tired of answering questions he can’t really answer. Until there is clarity about the futures of Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold, reporters will understandably continue to ask questions about them, because it is impossible to separate their contract situations from their performances – and from Liverpool’s prospects for this season and beyond.
Mohamed Salah’s contract is a big topic of conversation (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
If Salah, for example, proves to be as reliable in front of goal for Liverpool as he has been since joining the club in 2017, it’s fair to ask Slot how he might cope with a future without him. Given the impact Salah had in the win at Ipswich, the discussion about him may just start all over again.
Slot is the first head coach in Liverpool’s history, so by definition his focus is on the training pitch and preparing players, while leaving matters such as transfers and contract extensions to Hughes. Still, it is not his fault that Liverpool have reached a point where three of the club’s greatest modern players could leave at the same time and for no reason.
And it is not entirely Hughes’ fault, either. He inherited a bad situation after the drift allowed by Klopp in recent years, when owner Fenway Sports Group considered selling the club and president Mike Gordon, who was actually in charge of signing the cheques, temporarily stepped down from his duties before handing them over to Michael Edwards when he was rehired by FSG as the company’s managing director of football in March.
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The situation is not unique to Liverpool. In the last few days alone, Newcastle’s Eddie Howe and Crystal Palace’s Oliver Glasner have been bombarded with questions about Marc Guehi’s future, even though neither of them really has much say in what happens to him. The same has been true for Unai Emery and Diego Carlos, as well as Enzo Maresca and Conor Gallagher – both of whom have had to deal with issues affecting players whose futures are largely out of their hands.
Not for the first time, Germany has provided an example of how things can be done better. At Bayern Munich, where Vincent Kompany was appointed head coach in May, the club has pushed sporting director Max Eberl in front of the cameras to protect him from topics he shouldn’t necessarily be discussing. A recent report on Sky Deutschland suggested this could become a regular feature in the new season.
Perhaps something similar will happen elsewhere. For now, sports directors are exposed to the accusation that they do not perceive responsibility as much as they perceive power.
(Top photo: Arne Slot, left, with Richard Hughes in Liverpool; Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
