I think the club have worked with Edwin a lot over the last few years, so they know what we can bring to the table. Even though he has no DoF experience, he has a fair amount of cred.
Edwin van der Sar has been approached to become Director of Football
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik @Rood and Imran @Annihilate Now! start with the good news by celebrating Manchester United Women's emphatic FA Cup win over Spurs at Wembley and the future of manager Marc Skinner.
Then it's the bad news and the ever worsening form of our Men with losses to Arsenal and Palace.
Finally the main debate - ETH Out now or keep him until the end of the season - if not longer. Are you Team Nik or Team Imran?
Sourse isn’t the most reliable, wouldn't get hopes up yet.
No, precisely because we have no reference to say that it's often the way in Football. To me it's an unknown.
His degree and experience is in marketing and subsequently top level management. So unless he’s coming in to replace Richard Arnold I don’t see where he fits.
He doesn’t seem to have any experience in player scouting or recruitment. Just because he’s a key person at an organisation that’s good at it doesn’t mean he can it himself.
Fair enough. Maybe his marketing degree came in handy when Ajax managed to rinse us for Donny
But I haven’t seen any evidence that the areas where United still look weak (scouting, fee and contract negotiations and indeed player sales) are ones that Edwin is closely involved in, although as CEO he’s presumably responsible for ensuring that the people doing those things are capable (and not sex pests…)
Didnt Murtough hire a deputy last year or early this year to do this? Is he still here, or has he left/sacked? If he is still here, then what would VDS role be? You cant have 2 DOF can you?
The recruitment specialists are those people who head and lead the scouting departments at their respect clubs and report directly to the DoF. At Liverpool it's Barry Hunter and Dave Fallows who both lead on the recruitment and work in a Chief of scouting and head of recruitment capacity at the club. At City it's Gary Worthington who leads the scouting at first team level. And most fans don't have a clue about these roles and can't look past the guy at the top of the pyramid (DoF) without even realising that there's a big group of people beneath the DoF who are absolutely vital towards creating a stability within recruitment which will dictate how the DoF will function in his/her role.
Now if we look at Ajax in the last 10 years, since Overmars arrived in 2012 as the DoF. He made a key move in February 2014, to bring in the 'transfer specialist' in the form of Henk Veldmate from FC Groningen who was brought to head the Scouting and recruitment at the club. And before Veldmate's arrival, Overmars made mistakes, with the high profile one being that he turned down the chance to sign Virgil Van Dijk from FC Groningen in favour of Mike van der Hoorn who ended up being a journeyman footballer. And he then turned to the guy who was leading the recruitment at Van Dijk's club to improve and evolve the structure he was creating on the football side of the club at Ajax.
Van der Sar from my own understanding of what I've read wasn't overly important when it came to making structural decisions on the football side of the club.
As far as United are concerned, they've put in place Simon Wells, Jose Mayorga and a data scientist (Dominic Jordan) to lead on recruitment alongside Mick Court who is the technical Chief Scout. And what these guys do in the coming months and years will determine if the structural process on the football side of the club is successful. We just have to wait and see how things evolve because you can have a DoF with the most impressive CV/resume but unless you have top class/experienced recruiters below him, then things won't function on the structural side of the club.
Wouldn't be the worst appointment but then again considering how low we've set the bar in the recent past it would be hard to beat some of the whoppers we've employed.
I don't believe this is true for a second. But if it is, I'll take it, if it means getting rid of Woodward's harbinger.
Is he replacing Arnold or Murtough?
President of Football. Thanks Eric!
Ajax must love us at the moment
Reading everywhere that Overmars was the real the one doing all the work, not VdS, so I don't know what to think about this.
It wasn't a duo, they more people involved. And Overmars isn't doing all the work, he is just the one leading the technical side on a day to day basis. Van der Sar runs the club as a whole and is more business focused.
I would have to disagree. I probably can’t articulate it well, but VDS used to be a footballer player, and is now running Ajax. He comes across as very intelligent and has an important relationship with United.
And none of that means that you are able to do every jobs in a Football club. Do you think that a professional footballer is necessarily a good coach, that a good coach is necessarily a good technical director, that a good technical director is necessarily a good president and vice versa?
Being intelligent and having a relationship with United is irrelevant. Being competent in a particular job doesn't make you competent in an other. In fact a DOF in a different club that has to follow different processeses isn't necessarily going to be good in an smaller or bigger club.
Now hopefully we will be able to take other clubs to the cleaners when we sell our players to them
True enough, but I'm not sure there are masses of people with the precise experience of turning around a ship like Man Utd. It's a fairly unique challenge I would suspect.
Considerably more high profile, and there is a route to the CEO job down the line.
What it will boil down to is wether or not VDS believes he has achieved what he can with Ajax. Ajax has established themselves as a high performing feeder club to bigger european clubs. The dutch league is not one of the major European leagues. Ajax has of course always been a club that fosters talents, but combining that with success in Europe, AND repeating the same after rebuilding following mass player sales, is a completely different thing.
MUFC is one of the most high profile clubs on the planet, that is trying their best to become one of the best again. Whoever spearheads that operation gets the one of the biggest gold marks on their resume in sports.
VDS has 1 year left on his Ajax employment contract. He was appointed CEO from the role as Marketing Director. VDS has been quoted on saying that he exepcts to return to the club in the future in some capacity.
I dont know what role excactly the club sees for Edwin, considering the roles he would be best suited for are currently occupied, but removing that obstacle, there are a lot of signs that point to VDS returning as a club executive.
I don't think that it's a consideration for executives and I would be extremely skeptical of anyone who is leading a legendary club like Ajax and considers it the way you did.
Who has been doing Overmars job
Since he’s been sacked?
Hamstra and Huntelaar.
He just signed a new little over a month ago, why would he suddenly want to leave for a lesser position?
Different jobs.
Overmars was what John Murtough is at United= DOF
Edwin VdS is what Richard Arnold is at United = CEO
Our new GK-CEO.
GECKO.
GECKO.
But then how do we sign all of Ajax's players? Think it through lads.
Not overly understanding of the excitement over this really.
I don't believe it.
At one level, it's hard to judge how well he would slot in. You can't simply compare job titles, particularly of c-level execs and senior managers across organisations. The CEO of one football club might spend 80% of their time doing football related stuff and most of the finances are dealt with by the CFO. While at another football club the CEO might be entirely finance led and simply hands off all the football stuff to a different management team.
Likewise a DOF at one club might be the true centre or power who picks the manager, buys players and all the rest. At another club all they might do is provide bridge the gap between the CEO/Board and the staff, inputting technical advice upwards and supporting the manager.
Plus there's the fact that United are about four times bigger than Ajax. Some of that will be accounted simply by first team salaries, but United will still be a much larger and more complex organisation. I'm CEO of an organisation with 50 staff. If I became Deputy CEO of an organisation with 200 staff, that would be a step up, not down.
So its impossible to get a like for like comparison in terms of duties and experience. However what I will say is that VDS has shown himself to be competent in the higher echelons of management, while our current senior execs haven't. So for the sake of injecting some experience and talent into the club, I'm generally favourable. The fact that he gets our club and is a likeable guy is a nice bonus.
Likewise a DOF at one club might be the true centre or power who picks the manager, buys players and all the rest. At another club all they might do is provide bridge the gap between the CEO/Board and the staff, inputting technical advice upwards and supporting the manager.
Plus there's the fact that United are about four times bigger than Ajax. Some of that will be accounted simply by first team salaries, but United will still be a much larger and more complex organisation. I'm CEO of an organisation with 50 staff. If I became Deputy CEO of an organisation with 200 staff, that would be a step up, not down.
So its impossible to get a like for like comparison in terms of duties and experience. However what I will say is that VDS has shown himself to be competent in the higher echelons of management, while our current senior execs haven't. So for the sake of injecting some experience and talent into the club, I'm generally favourable. The fact that he gets our club and is a likeable guy is a nice bonus.
Buy the club next. Their fans will be forced to become ours and their hard earned money used to fund the purchase. Take all the good players and give them our reserves. Let them get relegated.
Did Arnold's role as Managing Director get filled after he was promoted to CEO, or is it still vacant? Could it be that its the MD role that Van der Sar has been approached about and things are getting lost in translation?
I think the lack of football people around the club has been a big issue since Fergie's retirement. It's one of the main reasons why we lacked direction and wasted a lot of money. Having someone like VDS who knows the game, played for the club, and has a lot of experience in another top club would be a step in the right direction.
It would be a lot more logical and also encouraging.
What does a managing director do at a football club?
It would certainly fit more logically into the structure that on paper exists at Man Utd.
I assume it will depend on the club in question. Arnold's remit under Woodward was, principally, around the commercial side of things. There's no reason why that couldn't change depending on circumstances or what Arnold feels his MD needs to do.
We’re still going to be going back for Timber too!
VdS would be an ETH recommendation if signed, in which case I would be in favor of if.
What VDS did at first at Ajax more or less resembles what Arnold did (before his current role, as Ed's replacement).
Commercial/marketing stuff, in other words. Not directly related to the football side.
So he would replace Murtough? Sorry for stupid question but i am lost lately about our technical staff. Dof, technical director, junior dof, senior dof.....
We’re robbing them blind. Ironically, though, we’re still not robbing them of Blind.