Having a DoF means you don't follow the more traditional 'scouting' setup anymore ... today all players over the age of five have an agent, that agent will make the youtube videos, highlight reels, and write the CV which he will bring to all the professional clubs. We have Steve Hitchin as our chief scout and he has three assistants who work full time ... 90% of our scouting, and most other EPL clubs scouting, is done by freelance scouts on request. Often the same scout will be getting paid to report on the same player to several clubs ... only when we are 80% down the line will we send one of our own, and even that doesn't always happen, why scout someone who's a 50 million star you already know everything about, just watch the video.
I agree we need a DoF to deal with the dozens of agents and hundreds of payers that are offered to the club every year, professional football is now all about the 'money ball' so you need the best guys doing it ... DL doesn't do it now, we have a committee that oversees all transfers, we just need to make that committee better.
Klopp may have done a great job at Liverpool but Michael Edwards is the man who changed everything - he created their research department which identifies transfer targets, he changed their entire contracts process and now leads all contract negotiations, he's a member of their transfer committee. He also changed the way they approach transfer targets, Klopp might approach a German player, but Linders would approach a Dutchman, ex-players are an important tool in convincing targets to sign ... it's all very much hard sell ... they only have Barry Hunter - Chief Scout and Dave Moss - Academy Chief Scout as full time scouts all their regular scouting is done on as as required basis. It's a model we would do well to follow, so far that system has identified for them:
VvD - Salah - Ox - Robertson - Alison - Keita - Fabinho - Shaqiri and now Minanino ... not a bad strike rate
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