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Franco Baldini

Or the stories earlier in the summer were wrong/lifted from message board rumours.

Indeed.

DoF are inherently a long term appointment. We all saw how Comolli's work didn't come to fruition until long after he'd departed. Their focus is 2-4 years in the future, not this season.

I think he's 2 years into a 4 year contract, so I guess it will be more in 12-18 months that his position will be reviewed.

People also seem to assume he'd be keen to move 'back to Italy', but forget he's been living in London since late 2007 when he became England Assistant Manager.
 
Franco joined us as Technical Director in June 2013 from AS Roma where he was General Director. He leaves us now to spend time outside of club football.

We wish him all the best for the future.
 
So he has gone. Got rid of the deadwood maybe.

Question is will we get a new DOF or is the new committee working well enough?
 
So he has gone. Got rid of the deadwood maybe.

Question is will we get a new DOF or is the new committee working well enough?

Rebecca Caplehorn is meant to have taken over some of his responsibilities for contract negotiation and presumably Mitchell has a role in identifying players but there still seems to be a vacancy for a fixer and someone who leads on non-first team football matters.
 
Rebecca Caplehorn is meant to have taken over some of his responsibilities for contract negotiation and presumably Mitchell has a role in identifying players but there still seems to be a vacancy for a fixer and someone who leads on non-first team football matters.

Caplehorn is an accountant who came from the NHS. She replaced Darren Eales. She's an administrator.
 
Nicola Cortese

He will also free Levy up a bit more to look after the stadium build.

WOuld have thought that once the building work begins and financing is raised, Levy's time on the stadium will be reduced. And Levy needs more of a football person in the DoF role, not a businessman turned football person

This guy wouldnt take being no 2 to Levy either given he had the top job at Southampton
 
Don't know how he lasted this long!

Look at the squad he's left us with - one of the most exciting we've had in decades.

We've made a sizeable profit on transfers during his reign.

He's built us a reputable scouting network again - something we didn't have anything of in 2013.

We've never fallen beneath 6th, despite having 3 coaches in 2.5 years, with very different styles/player needs.

I think time will show he did a solid job, once the sensationalism of Soldado and Paulinho unfortunately flopping is afforded context.
 
WOuld have thought that once the building work begins and financing is raised, Levy's time on the stadium will be reduced. And Levy needs more of a football person in the DoF role, not a businessman turned football person

This guy wouldnt take being no 2 to Levy either given he had the top job at Southampton

It's the biggest privately-funded infrastructure project in Europe. It will need Levy's full attention for the next 3 years.

Cortese was Chief Executive at Soton - he still worked under a Chairman (Liebherr). It's no different to how Dein worked under Hill-Wood, Rick Parry under Moores, Kenyon under Abramovich etc. He also still lives in Hampshire and hasn't taken up a permanent role since 2014.

People have been saying for years we should go for a CEO, rather than a DoF. Perhaps now we've got a team of senior (but not director level) scouts in Mitchell, MacKenzie, Metcalf and Esparraga, there's enough footballing brains already in the committee?
 
You mean he is only leaving now ? Thought he already left long time ago. After all, didn't see his name being linked with any of our transfer rumours for some time now.

It was reported that he was heading the Njie deal.

And it was also reported that work on Son pre-dated Poch (Son has said himself that we tried to sign him under AVB)
 
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