Football finance expert Stefan Borson has one major doubt about the way Tottenham Hotspur will be run after their recent announcement regarding their new leadership structure.
Last week, Tottenham announced that Fabio Paratici and Johan Lagne will work together as sporting directors of the club.
Lange and Paratici will have different areas of focus at Spurs, with the former set to concentrate on the academy, scouting, and performance analysis, while the latter will be more involved in transfer windows, and player recruitment.
Tottenham fans are over the moon with Paratici’s return in an official role, with the Italian having a very strong record on transfers during his time as the club’s managing director.
Questions raised about Vinai Venkatesham’s role at Tottenham
Stefan Borson is not surprised by Spurs naming two sporting directors, suggesting that the responsibilities can be divided among the pair.
However, he pointed out that Tottenham also have a CEO in Vinai Venkatesham and questioned how much he would be involved in signing off on transfers.
Borson told Football Insider about Paratici and Lange’s appointment: “Well, it’s unusual, but I guess they would say that now football operations are so complex and big that you can easily have two sides of that sporting director role. Let’s say one looking at external recruitment and one looking at the operation of the club internally.
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“I don’t know if that’s how they’re going to split it, but I don’t think it’s unworkable as long as they’ve got clear division of responsibility within the sporting director remit.
“I think there is some question as to what everybody does in that mix because you’ve also got a chief executive. So, how much involvement does Vinai have in let’s say transfers and signing off transfers? This is not a situation where if you look at a club like Manchester City, where there’s multiple clubs that the chief executive is responsible for. Tottenham’s chief executive is only responsible for Tottenham Hotspur.
“It does look like there are reporting lines, that’s fine. But he’s got an element of experience on transfers and those sorts of situations himself, so you would think there’s a bit of overlap, but we’ll see.”
Spurs CEO expects disagreements between Fabio Paratici and Johan Lange
Venkatesham has said that he welcomes disagreements between Paratici and Lange in their new role, explaining that while they will have different areas of focus, it will very much be a combined effort.
The Tottenham CEO insisted that the divergent points of view of Paratici and Lange will help ensure that the club get more of their big decisions right.