Borussia Dortmund have responded to a story in the Mirror about Michael Zorc being appointed Director of Football at Arsenal, playing down any possible departure and calling it nonsense.
The 55 year old is the latest in a long list of names linked a new football executive role at the club, joining the likes of Marc Overmars and former Barcelona director of football Raul Sanllehi.
It’s clear that things are at least bubbling behind the scenes, and following on from last week’s story about Dortmund’s head of scouting, Sven Mislintat, further details have emerged in local media.
According to RuhrNachrichten, he is being ‘lured’ to Arsenal by a new challenge and a vastly improved salary.
They report that the Gunners will have to pay Dortmund compensation of around €1.5m, but it looks increasingly likely that he will join the club soon.
Whether this precipitates the departure of current head scout Steve Rowley remains to be seen, but the appointment of Mislintat is a very forward thinking one from the club, and will help revamp an area which has long required it.
Nice to see some weight to this story. A good shake-up of backroom staff is definitely in order.
There may be a case of having great base-level scouting and organisation skills, but does it make much sense bringing in a guy whose knowledge base is continental Europe when Brexit will soon mean a big reduction in our ability to bring in young promising players from there?
Even ‘young promising players’ seem to cost more than the €10m price that would allow them a work permit here.
If they’re already valued at over €10m there would have to be interest from several top clubs anyway, and therefore aren’t the sort we would need a scouting network to find. Also, we tend to bring in at least three or four every year. If we have to pay €10m+ for every one, that’s not remotely sustainable.
Apparently I was overly-optimistic. English clubs are able to sign Under-18s from other EU countries only because of an exemption from FIFA prohibition for countries within the EU (or rather the EEA, which is basically EU + countries allowing freedom of movement from EU).
Given that there’s almost no chance of the UK agreeing to EU freedom of movement, we will no longer be allowed to sign Under-18s from Europe, without even getting the work permit question.
We don’t know what the impacts of Brexit will be so we shouldn’t stand still just in case something happens to change the game
No-one’s arguing for standing still, but how you move forward should depend on how things are likely to transpire. The Brexit vote was basically all about preventing free movement of people in the EU, both major political parties support a policy ending free movement of people. It’s difficult to envision a scenario where bringing in players from Europe won’t be restricted.
“It’s difficult to envision a scenario.,….won’t be restricted”? Really? Why would high value foreign footballers, coming into the country, earning the kind of money whereby they place no burden on the state be restricted, post Brexit?
Because of the law. Currently there is no restriction at all on players with EU citizenship earning their trades in this country. For players from outside the EU there are restrictions. Some of the highest paid players in the country have to specifically apply for a work permit and regularly renew it to play in this country. Alexis Sanchez is one of them. That’s a restriction. In their cases they’re able to overcome that by demonstrating exceptional ability. In the case of up-and-coming players it’s far more difficult to make that case and many will be denied. See e.g. Wellington… Read more »
Hey guys. Do you remember we beat Sp*rs yesterday? How fricking sweet was that? Let’s revel in that a bit more before arguing about employment law in a post Brexit Europe.
Vote Quimby
Nice but that’s what they want you to do. Go back to sleep and be entertained whilst our rights are taken away.
Turkeys voting for Christmas!
As I understand it there’s an agreement in place between the home office and the PL/FA that any overseas player (EU or elsewhere) that has played for their national team in a certain number of games (can’t remember the number) within a certain period (can’t remember the period) OR is valued over (I believe) €10m (Could be £10m) will get a work permit for the period of his contract.
The problem comes with youngsters as you originally suggested, but it could all change… ?
Spot on PaulS
“In the ladder of law there’s no top and no bottom.”
Bob Dylan
About time people woke up to the repercussions of what Brexit actually means. You don’t actually have to go back very far to remember how it used to be but this is even worse.
Idiots.
Football should a break from Brexit what if ing. Enjoy the now.
It really isn’t hard to envision at all. Laws apply to normal people, not rich footballers and football clubs. They will no doubt find some way to get whatever exemptions they need.
Really surprised by the volume of downvotes here. I don’t necessarily agree that it doesn’t make sense to employ someone with knowledge base is continental Europe, nor do I think Mislintat’s knowledge is limited to the region, he’s clearly a good scout full stop finding the likes of Pulisic and Kagawa from further afield. However PaulS is very much right in his assertion that our ability to bring in talented youngsters form EU countries will be massively hampered post Brexit. Would Lewandowski, Aubameyang or Dembele meet the current UK footballer work permit regulations when they signed for Dortmund? Further, look… Read more »
Considering that the Premier League is one of Britain’s biggest cultural exports and vehicles of soft diplomacy the likelihood is restrictions are more likely to be eased outside of the EU not tighten.
The Premier league is the most internationally diverse and recognised league in the world, i can’t see any government jeopardizing one of our most high profile exports we have at a time when the country needs to been seen as open to the world.
I could be wrong though.
To be clear, there’s no question of premier league clubs being meaningfully restricted in practice when it comes to bringing in recognised top stars of the type which attracts big audiences. That’s not what’s being discussed. The topic under discussion is the ability to bring in players who aren’t recognised top stars, of the type which would be identified through a scouting network. There are two basic strands to this: 1) There is a FIFA global prohibition on international transfers of Under-18s. That rule basically contravenes EU laws on freedom of movement, so there is an exemption for transfers within… Read more »
Players will require whatever the british government requires of them when we leave the EU and no one knows what that may be. Everything else is guess work.
Given the importance of the industry to the country the government as you say could relax all the laws making it much easier for all we know.
Why would we not be able to in under-18’s from anywhere we want? FIFA rules don’t over rule national laws
In the world of football FIFA rules apply. This rule is why Barcelona, Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid recently received transfer bans, due to their illegally bringing in young players from South America.
The world of football FIFA rules apply but not in the EU because they’re against the law? So therefore they don’t
Seriously, what are the chances of a conservative government drawing up new laws restricting big business from making more money?
It will be a positive thing for young British players – and who knows, maybe our new guy is only charged with bringing in established talent.. or maybe he will discover young British talent.. either way I think it is a positive thing that British youth football won’t be dominated by foreign youngsters, it can only be a good thing for a national game, and the top Europeans will still end up playing here eventually.. win win
Despite my better judgement I know as soon as we appoint someone my intense frustration with Wenger is going to be replaced with a new optimism that perhaps withe someone behind him he can capture past glories. Know it’s stupid but heart over head and all that.. win yesterday probably helps. Fickle idiots, aren’t we.
Wonder who the media are going to dream up next week. Doubt Zorc would leave Dortmund
Dortmund have definitely unearthed some quality players over the years so happy to take any staff from them in this department to be fair.
great! i hope its true and comes true.
ha, I hope that any players he might find are cheap, otherwise we wont buy them, so whats the point
Rowley will join the coaching staff
Great move by the club. Not only will this improve the current set up, but when it comes time to recruit a new manager, having a high quality backroom staff, and especially, the scouting department, will make this task much easier.
great move to add Mislintat. If Zorc were to join then I suspect there already is an agreement in place that Wenger’s time is up. I could see why Zorc would join under that scenario as Arsenal is a very attractive job sans Wenger. Not that Kroenke cares about winning, but his American football team is having a lot of success this year after firing their long standing coach and replacing him with a young up and coming coach. If Zorc were to join by January then I suspect Wenger will be finished at year end.
What position does Zorc have at Dortmund?
Sporting director. They fired Tushel bc Zorc didn’t like him. Zorc signs the players he wants, not necessarily the ones the manager does. That was one of the big issues he had with tuschel
No competent sporting director will join Arsenal as long as Wenger is in charge as it’s sporting director in title only at Arsenal as long as Wenger is here. If a sporting director joins from a Dortmund, juventus etc that imo means there is an agreement in place for Wenger to leave
Than he would never join Arsenal. Aw would never allow that and frankly would be a bad idea under any manager
Source? I think you’ll find that there were more complex issues which made them sack Tuchel. By his own admission Tuchel isn’t exactly easy to work with. And Klopp didn’t seem to mind the transfer policy during his years at the club, if it is indeed like you claim.
Wingback
I think people are missing the point about Zorc, he’s spent his entire career at Dortmund. It would be a huge capture if was to join because of that very reason. Also, if talks have happened I doubt he has called for Wengers head.
It’s almost impossible to see him join as long as Wenger retains total control – as that would be a major step down for any top sporting director. It’s equally unlikely that Wenger refuses to give up his current power either – see all of his comments the past year. That’s why I say you will not get a competent sporting director to come to Arsenal without assurances that he will have at least as much power as he does at his current job.
If Arsenal is not ready to battle it out in transfers with Manchester’s and Chelsea then scouting the talents is the best way to go forward!
I like this backroom shape up but timing is critical.. sooner the better!
Hahaha. Wrong thread but just need to share my laughs about Aunantavic flapping about like a limpdick fish after getting his wrist trodden on. Cunt.
Excellent!!! Double figures thumbs up for you my friend! Cunt be the word.
I would love to get whoever is in charge of Atletico’s strikers recruitment:
Aguero, Falcao, Costa, Mandzukic, Griezmann
all of them in the last 10 years
And btw, the rest of the team is not shabby at all.
They have got some real diamonds, but we couldn’t have got most (NOT ALL!) of their best players at the time AM did because of work permit issues. Diego Costa wasn’t a regular for his national tea = no UK work permit. Same with some of the others. Oddly if Costa had joined us then, I don’t think he would have survived long enough to be a success, as his first few seasons at AM were very unimpressive. He went out on loan and looked like just being a mid-league journey man. There’s also a lot of players they get… Read more »
*obviously ‘national team’…
I dont mean to be a jerk, but how can it fix a problem that has long needed fixing and also be a forward-thinking move?