Liverpool Tries Something Different With New Sporting Director Jörg Schmadtke

Liverpool FC has confirmed that Jörg Schmadtke will be the club’s new sporting director, replacing the outgoing Julian Ward.

The 59-year-old will initially be tasked with steering the club through the 2023 summer transfer window ahead of the 2023/24 season—a move that represents a different approach to this role.

Schmadtke had previously been the sporting director at German Bundesliga side Wolfsburg, a job he held for almost five years before leaving the club in January 2023.

When Ward announced in November 2022 that he would be leaving Liverpool, the agent of Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp, Marc Kosicke, recommended Schmadtke as a possible candidate to come in as the new sporting director.

Ward was the successor to Liverpool’s highly-regarded sporting director, Michael Edwards, who oversaw the signings that helped Liverpool to Champions League and Premier League titles in recent years, as well as FA Cup, League Cup and Club World Cup wins.

In those years, Liverpool successfully mounted a challenge to Manchester City’s dominance of the Premier League, breaking up City’s five Premier League wins in the past six years by winning the title in 2020.

City has since gone on to win the league three times in a row, and though Liverpool was close to pipping them to the title in 2022, performances declined in the 2022/23 season resulting in a 5th-place finish.

It is clear the Liverpool squad needs a rebuild, especially in midfield, and the departure of James Milner, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Roberto Firmino this summer will provide an opportunity to bring in new faces.

Schmadtke’s role may not be as all-encompassing as the one performed by the lauded Edwards, and the German’s main job will be to negotiate with clubs, players, and agents once targets have been identified, rather than identifying the players himself.

“I don’t have a budget yet!” Schmadtke joked in an interview with German outlet Sport1.

“Seriously, though, transfers are always complicated. When a player moves from A to B, it’s mostly about small things that are difficult to influence and unrelated to making money.

“For example, how the player integrates with his family in the city, what his place in the team should be, and how he can show his maximum performance.

“You have to take that into account. The sums involved in these transfers are almost irrelevant.”

Schmadtke will come into play at the negotiations stage of transfers, trying to get the best deal for the club while also convincing the players that Liverpool is the right move for them.

He will be on the phone to and visiting players and clubs in person, trying to smooth over deals with all involved, including the clubs, the player, and the agent(s).

Klopp and Schmadtke’s non-playing careers overlap. In 2001, Schmadtke started out as a sporting director at Alemannia Aachen while Klopp had taken his first managerial job, at Mainz 05, in the same year.

Schmadtke was then in roles with Hannover 96 and FC Köln while Klopp was the manager at Borussia Dortmund, and it is in these circumstances the pair had previously crossed paths.

When Schmadtke left Wolfsburg in January, Klopp described Schmadtke as a “great character”.

“I would have liked to work with him, I’m sure it would have worked out well,” said Klopp at the time.

“He’s a top character, somebody who never changed in 38 years and stayed true to himself. He’ll be missed by football.”

Once it became clear Schmadtke would be joining Liverpool, Klopp said that “his character is good, his personality is good, and his humour is good—I know that from a few moments next to him on the pitch.”

Schmadtke has also been described as stubborn, and Liverpool hopes that his combination of humour and tough negotiating will help make the club a popular proposition to transfer targets while also getting the best deal.

“The influence of the coach on transfers is greater in England than in Germany, where a sporting director holds everything in one hand [deals with all aspects],” Schmadtke continued in his interview with Sport1.

“Jürgen Klopp sets the priorities, we set him up with a team of data analysts, scouts and so on, so he can then choose from a list of players who he wants to work with.

“Then I’ll deal with the transfers with the responsible departments at the club. And in the end, the owners have to be satisfied with the investments.”

Schmadtke will begin in his new role on June 1 and will initially be on board for three months—i.e., until the end of the 2023 summer transfer window.

Liverpool has already been linked with several midfield transfer targets.

A deal for Alexis Mac Allister is thought to already be at an advanced stage, while Manu Koné of German side Borussia Mönchengladbach has been strongly linked and could be Schmadtke’s first task once he gets to work on Thursday.

“Jörg will work with our football operations department as it continues to provide support for Jürgen Klopp, in keeping with our ongoing endeavour to keep growing and developing the club in all areas,” said Fenway Sports Group (Liverpool’s owner) president Mike Gordon.

The initial short-term nature appointment represents a slightly different way of doing things in that the sporting director is initially only on board for one transfer window.

Sporting directors are usually the person tasked with overseeing the whole philosophy and stability of a club, from playing style to recruitment, and in modern football it is usually the manager or head coach’s role that is more temporary or prone to change.

But Liverpool already has the style and culture in place, driven by Klopp and his staff, so this arrangement may make sense. What makes less sense is giving the sporting director less of a say on the transfer targets themselves.

Schmadtke will be judged on how good he is at getting deals over the line and getting them done at a reasonable price for the club.

Meanwhile, Liverpool’s decision to work in this manner, and ultimately its 2023/24 season, will be judged on how effective the new signings are and whether they can help the club challenge at the top of the Premier League once again.