What makes up a football scouting department?

It's probably common knowledge that scouting and recruitment departments in football clubs look a lot different to what they did 20 years ago. As you can imagine, there is a lot more that goes into the signing of a player these days and rightly so, if you consider the money at stake.

In this article I have listed a few different people that you may find within a modern-day recruitment department. It's by no means an exhaustive list, but hopefully it gives you an overview of the types of roles that are available if you are interested to learn, or even looking for a job within scouting.

So, let's kick it off with the first one...

Director of Football
Pretty much the top of the pile (apart from the CEO) this person has the job of overseeing all football related activities and of course, transfers make up a big part of that. This role is sometimes called the 'technical director' and you could say it’s the go between the head coach/manager and the board.

The success of the team can be determined by how well they do in the transfer window and so there is a lot of pressure that comes with this role.

Some examples of people in this role in the Premier League are:

Dan Ashworth - Newcastle United
Edu - Arsenal
John Murtough - Manchester United
Kevin Thelwell - Everton
Julian Ward - Liverpool

Head of Recruitment
This person will work very closely with the director of football and be one of the more senior figures in the department. They will deal with pretty much every other role listed in this article.

You can learn a lot more about this role in the video below where I interview Andy Belk, the current head of recruitment at Championship side, QPR. He goes into how he deals with agents, deadline day and also certain rules on foreign transfers that you may not already know. Very interesting and I highly recommend you check it out:

Head Coach
Obviously this person has other responsibilities within the club, but I have included them in here as they definitely will do (at least in most cases!) have a say in the players that the club is bringing in.

The amount of influence the head coach has will differ between clubs but along with the director of football and head of recruitment, the head coach would normally be part of the decision-making process.

Head of Scouting/Chief Scout
In some clubs, this role, and that of the head of recruitment, could be one person. However, in some, they can be separate. The head of scouting will usually be someone who started out as a scout and progressed up the ranks after amassing a good reputation or network of contacts.

This person will technically be in charge of the rest of the scouts (listed next!).

Scouts
Scouts can come in all shapes and sizes and focus on different types of things. They will usually be responsible for watching and recommending players and submitting scouting reports that would be added to the club database. A scout may be sent to watch a player that was highlighted when looking through data or a young player that is breaking through.

Different types of scouts include:
- Domestic Scouts (scouts that cover games in your country)
- Foreign or Overseas Scouts (yes, these cover games in other countries)
- Video Scouts (watch videos of players from all round the world)
- Youth Scouts (tasked with bringing in youth talent)

Scouting Co-ordinator
A large team of scouts can be great but only if they are efficiently managed and organised. This can be the role of the scouting co-ordinator. This person will ensure each target is being watched, and enough reports are being collected. They may organise things like tickets and logistics too, for the travelling scouts.

Scouting Intelligence
Sometimes combined with other roles, this position is about finding out as much information on a potential transfer target as possible. If a team is spending millions on a player, you better believe that they want to do as much due diligence as possible. This could be hearing from references, researching injuries they have had, how they act off the pitch, family matters... all sorts really.

Recruitment Analyst
Some clubs may just have the recruitment analyst do the roles of the scouting intelligence and data analyst (to a smaller degree) if they don't have the resources. The recruitment analyst can do a range of jobs including video scouting, submitting player reports, creating player dossiers, compiling other reports and even organising scouts.

This can be a very interesting role and one that I actually did for half a season back when I was at Brighton & Hove Albion.

Data Analysts
Pretty self-explanatory this one. Analysts that deal with the data side of things. Nowadays, clubs will have access to a lot of data. Whether this is collected internally or acquired from third-party companies. The role of the data analyst would be to make sense of this data and be able to present actionable findings to other members of the department.

Definitely not a role that you will find in every club, but they are certainly becoming more popular, especially in the bigger clubs.

Agents
Although these wouldn't really be employed by the clubs, I have included them as they usually are an important part of any transfer. Agents will usually represent the players but there will be certain agents that have good relationships with the clubs (specifically the technical directors or head of recruitment/scouting) after working together on several deals over a long period of time.

I actually did a video version of this newsletter where I speak a little more about each of the above roles. You can check that out here:

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