Newcastle United’s search for a new sporting director has reached its final stages, after interviews conducted with candidates by the club’s hierarchy over the past fortnight.
As The Athletic revealed earlier this week, Johannes Spors, global sporting director of would-be Everton owners 777 Group, and Dougie Freedman, sporting director at Crystal Palace, are the names on Newcastle’s narrowed-down shortlist to succeed Dan Ashworth. Ashworth remains on gardening leave, with his protracted exit to Manchester United unconcluded.
A decision has yet to be taken, but The Athletic outlines who Spors and Freedman are, and why Newcastle have been attracted to them.
Johannes Spors
So who is he?
The 41-year-old German is global sporting director of 777 Group, which is attempting to buy Everton and owns clubs across the world, including Italy’s Genoa, Red Star in Paris, Standard Liege of Belgium, Vasco da Gama in Brazil and Germany’s Hertha Berlin. Spors holds a strong reputation as the architect at the centre of the group’s football operations.
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Spors began as an analyst working with Ralf Rangnick, now coach of Austria’s national team and the former Manchester United interim head coach, at German club Hoffenheim from 2006. He followed his compatriot to another Bundesliga side, RB Leipzig, in 2015, where he assumed control of recruitment. Spors has been heavily influenced by Rangnick.
His first technical director role came in 2020, aged 37, at Vitesse Arnhem in the Netherlands, where he dealt closely with Chelsea. Armando Broja was signed on loan from the Premier League club, as was Lois Openda, now at RB Leipzig, from Belgium’s Club Bruges. During Spors’ 18 months at Vitesse, they enjoyed their best-ever start to a season, got to the Dutch version of the FA Cup final and finished fourth to qualify for Europe.
In December 2021, Spors moved to Genoa, initially as their general manager. While he couldn’t save an ageing squad from relegation, Spors oversaw the summer recruitment that would see them bounce straight back to Serie A last season.
After just seven months with Genoa, 777 promoted Spors to global sporting director, with every individual sporting director within the group reporting to him. Spors has overseen an overhaul in footballing operations across 777 and he is a proponent of a combination of eye-test, in-stadium scouting, video analysis and data when it comes to signing players.
What might count in his favour?
Spors’ multi-club model experience is at least part of the reason Newcastle are interested in him.
Newcastle’s ownership group has explored purchasing clubs across Europe and beyond, and it remains an ambition to expand the portfolio beyond the Premier League. Given Spors’ knowledge of running the sporting side of a multi-club model, he can help with the identification of potential teams to add to the stable and build the necessary links between them.
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He has experience and connections across Europe, which are seen as beneficial, yet Spors believes that a club’s primary transfer market should be within the country they play in. While Eddie Howe, Newcastle’s head coach, is not directly involved in the sourcing of a new sporting director, he also values the recruitment of Premier League-experienced players, mixed with quality imports. Howe would need to work closely with Ashworth’s successor.
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Although Spors espouses a combination approach to recruitment, data features heavily within his methodology — and some figures inside Newcastle are keen for the club’s processes to become more scientific. At Genoa, for example, respected data site StatsBomb was brought in on a consultancy basis while 777 built up the analysis department.
Spors also has a record of lowering the average age of teams, reducing wage bills and yet increasing the value of a squad. He did this at both Leipzig and Vitesse — that appeals to Newcastle, given the constraints of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR).
What might count against him?
Spors has never worked in the Premier League and, for at least some at Newcastle, experience of England is preferable.
Unlike Freedman, Spors has been less hands-on recruitment-wise since assuming his group-wide role, even if he is involved in every major transfer across 777’s clubs. Recruitment experience is viewed as important for this post-Ashworth role.
Anything else I need to know?
Albert Gudmundsson (14 Serie A goals this season) and Morten Frendrup (33 starts in their 34 league games so far) were brought in under Spors’ watch at Genoa, while last summer’s arrivals Mateo Retegui, Josep Martinez and Koni De Winter were identified using the processes he put in place.
There was also Radu Dragusin, who joined Tottenham Hotspur in January for around £25million ($31.2m at the current exchange rate), representing an almost five-fold profit on the fee paid for him a year earlier. Genoa are expected to make significant markups on Gudmundsson et al, should they depart, and improving Newcastle’s sales record is deemed crucial for any new sporting director.
Spors visited Saudi Arabia in December as a guest of FIFA, world football’s governing body, and has already built connections in the Gulf country. Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) holds an 80 per cent majority stake in Newcastle.
Dougie Freedman
So who is he?
The 49-year-old Scot is a former striker who played for several English clubs across the EFL and Premier League, including Nottingham Forest and Wolverhampton Wanderers. Most of his playing career was with Crystal Palace, where he scored 108 goals in 368 appearances across two spells.
Freedman also returned to south Londoners Palace post-retirement in early 2010, as assistant manager to Paul Hart and was kept on under successor George Burley. When Burley was sacked the following January, Freedman was placed in charge and saved Palace from relegation to League One before leaving in autumn 2012 for fellow second-tier side Bolton Wanderers. He also managed Forest for just over a year from February 2015.
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Despite Freedman disappointing Steve Parish, Palace’s chairman, by taking the Bolton job, he returned to Selhurst Park again in August 2017, this time as sporting director. Freedman was influential in hiring Patrick Vieira when Roy Hodgson stepped down after the 2020-21 season, and has earned a reputation for spotting up-and-coming talent and convincing them to join Palace, including Marc Guehi from Chelsea, Adam Wharton from Blackburn Rovers and Michael Olise from Reading.
Parish has referred to Freedman as the No 1 person he has hired during the 14 years he has been at Palace and the former Scotland international has repeatedly been linked with high-profile posts elsewhere in recent months: Freedman is reportedly a target for Manchester United. Ironically, they want him to work under Ashworth as head of recruitment.
What might count in his favour?
As Newcastle’s exhaustive search for a sporting director has progressed, Freedman has emerged as a frontrunner, according to insiders who, like other sources for this article, asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships.
Some at Newcastle think Freedman’s knowledge of the English game will give him a strong chance of making an immediate impact. Freedman has also dealt with some prominent figures at Newcastle previously; he is familiar with Howe too, and there is hope the pair could forge a relationship quickly.
With the refinement of recruitment procedures deemed essential, Freedman’s sustained success at Palace is appealing. His focus on data — player identification processes are initially entirely metrics-led, with 29 number-specific questions applied to transfer targets before they are whittled down to a shortlist and in-person scouting takes precedence — is seen as desirable by some.
What’s more, Palace’s budget has regularly been the lowest among established Premier League clubs, meaning Freedman has focused on recruiting young players on the rise whose values will increase.
He was able to convince Guehi and Wharton to join Palace ahead of other clubs, and that ability to lure players before they hit their expensive peaks matches Newcastle’s blueprint.
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What might count against him?
While Freedman has been credited with luring some exciting talent to Palace, his ability to profit on those players and then reinvest the funds received is largely untested.
Although that can be seen as a positive, with Olise and Eberechi Eze retained despite keen interest, it means he has little experience in bringing in the sorts of fees Newcastle require to continue spending under PSR rules. Although Freedman was involved in the 2019 sale of Aaron Wan-Bissaka, an academy graduate, to Manchester United for £50million.
Alexander Sorloth (£9million from Denmark’s Midtjylland in 2018) and Odsonne Edouard (£14m from Celtic in Scotland three years later) are examples of expensive Palace signings who have underperformed, the latter to a lesser extent, and Newcastle cannot afford to waste money, given their PSR issues.
Unlike Spors, Freedman does not have experience beyond Palace and, while he is the fourth-longest-serving sporting director or equivalent at a club in the Premier League, he does not boast the same knowledge of the European market, or of overseeing a multi-club model.
Anything else I need to know?
Part of the reason why Freedman has caught Newcastle’s attention is because they were tracking players he signed for Palace or looked to take to Selhurst Park.
Conor Gallagher spent a season on loan there from Chelsea, while Olise’s name has regularly featured during discussions regarding a right-sided forward. Guehi is admired too, as is his centre-back partner Joachim Andersen, and Newcastle did significant due diligence on Wharton while he was at Blackburn before his January move to Palace.
Additional reporting: James Horncastle
(Top photos: Spors, left, and Freedman; Getty Images)