It has already been a summer of profound change at Tottenham Hotspur and we are not even yet in July.
The Europa League final in Bilbao was only five weeks ago. The man who delivered that, Ange Postecoglou, has already been dismissed. He has been replaced by Thomas Frank, from Brentford, who arrives with the hope that he can build a more robust, consistent Spurs team next season.
But there has also been a change in the club’s executive roles too. Long-standing board member Donna-Maria Cullen announced her departure at the end of the season. Vinai Venkatesham, formerly of Arsenal, has come in as the new chief executive officer. And last week, the club finalised the exit of chief football officer Scott Munn, who is now on gardening leave.
In a sense, Munn’s departure is no surprise. The Athletic reported in April that Munn’s future at the club was in “severe doubt”. And he has ultimately gone the same way as his compatriot Postecoglou. Churn in these roles is nothing new. Tottenham seem to embark on a new organisational overhaul most summers. Munn’s two-year spell at Spurs owes to the last such overhaul, back in 2023.
During the 2022-23 season, the club commissioned an external review into all their footballing activities. Daniel Levy was quoted on the club website as saying that this was “to ensure we apply our values of innovation, drive and excellence”. And it led to the opening of a new role of chief football officer, who would coordinate all football departments. In April 2023, Munn was appointed, officially starting his work in September.
After the appointment of Postecoglou, Munn’s main work involved a thorough review of the club’s football departments. This led to an overhaul, with plenty of staff leaving the club. The work on the medical department remains ongoing, as shown by last season. But the improvement in Spurs’ scouting in recent years — as shown by signings like Wilson Odobert, Antonin Kinsky and Lucas Bergvall — suggests that they are better at identifying young signings than they used to be.
Munn ruffled some feathers during his two years at Tottenham, but that may be inevitable in a role that requires firing and hiring.
Munn’s second season at Tottenham ended on a high, with Spurs winning the Europa League final in Bilbao, an achievement that will mark the careers of everyone involved in it. But now there is a new structure at Spurs and they will not be looking for a new chief football officer to replace Munn.
The key person in the new structure is Venkatesham, for whom the new job of CEO has been created. Frank, the new head coach, will report into Venkatesham, as will Johan Lange, the technical director, and Rebecca Caplehorn, who oversees football administration and governance. So will Andy Rogers, who is managing director of Tottenham Hotspur Women, and Paul May, in charge of training centre operations.
In Frank’s first interview as Spurs head coach, he talked about the importance of the structure behind the scenes and what they can achieve if everyone works together. “You can’t do anything alone, in my opinion,” Frank said. “The alignment is key, from top to bottom. Of course, it starts from Daniel (Levy), and Vinai and Johan and me. The more the four of us can be aligned, just like a unit, an unbreakable unit, the stronger we will be.”
Venkatesham also spoke of the importance of alignment during a joint interview he did with Levy, published by the club last week.
“I think we’re going to form a really powerful partnership,” Venkatesham said of his relationship with Levy. “I’ll be taking more of the lead day-to-day on operational matters on the pitch and off the pitch. But we’ll be working on everything together, certainly there won’t be any decisions of any significance that happen at the club that we’re not completely joined at the hip on.”
Venkatesham has only just started at the club but this is already one of the most significant ever changes in how Tottenham are run. His arrival in such a powerful CEO role means a more modern management organisation, rather than Tottenham’s distinctive streamlined feel. For years, there has been a hope at Spurs to strengthen the executive side of the club. Venkatesham’s arrival marks a meaningful step in that direction.
Staff have already been impressed with Venkatesham’s openness and transparency behind the scenes, and his willingness to trust and empower colleagues. Even his six-minute video with Levy on YouTube felt like a new step towards open communication for the club, given how little is traditionally heard from Spurs’ long-standing chairman.
This is already a very different club than it was two cycles ago, back when Fabio Paratici was brought in as managing director of football at the end of the 2020-21 season, with the hope that he could drive up standards around the whole club, as well as taking charge of recruitment. The initial plan was that Paratici would bring Antonio Conte with him, although in reality Conte eventually arrived five months after Spurs first approached him, with Nuno Espirito Santo taking the first 10 league games of the 2021-22 season.
Even though Paratici was forced to resign from his official role in April 2023, he has never truly gone away. Munn’s two years as chief football officer occurred to an extent in Paratici’s shadow. Because Paratici has continued to work as a consultant for the club, advising largely on recruitment, while he serves a 30-month ban from official football activity. (The work that he has been doing is consistent with the limited scope of his ban).
But Paratici’s ban ends next month, meaning that he would, in theory, be allowed to return to the type of work that he did for Spurs between 2021 and 2023.
As Paratici reaches the end of his ban, there has been constant speculation as to whether he may be restored to a role like the one he used to occupy at the club. He spoke to Milan about taking on a big new role there this summer but it came to nothing. The question is whether there is space for someone like Paratici, with his unique skills and persona, inside Tottenham’s new modern structure.
After taking a big step forward, does it still make sense to take another step back?
(Top photos: Getty Images)