The Secret Scout – An Introduction

You’ve heard of The Secret Footballer…well we’ve got The Secret Scout! Our man in the know works for the one of the top teams in England, but has requested we keep his identity secret to ensure he keeps his job. Seems fair!

No one knows his name, his age or what he looks like, but we do know he is who he says he is and The Secret Scout really does know his onions. As an introduction, he’s allowed us to republish his thoughts on Harry Redknapp’s January transfer dealings which he originally produced on his personal blog in April. From here onwards, these words are The Secret Scout’s words and have not been edited in any way. Enjoy…

Jenas in action for Spurs while Redknapp was manager of the London club.

Towards the end of the January 2013 transfer window, I received a call from one of Harry Redknapp’s advisors, who was in a spot of bother. Apparently, Harry had been all over Europe during the month trying to locate players – Portugal on Monday, Holland on Tuesday, France on Wednesday, and so on (remember wondering why there had been so few car window interviews this season?).

But despite this rapid accumulation of air miles, countless meetings & phone calls with agents and long evenings spent on YouTube, QPR’s new manager still wasn’t satisfied. By the proverbial slamming-shut of the transfer window, the self-proclaimed football-manager-not-wheeler-dealer had ended up with six players, a quantity equalled only by Fulham in January, a quantity which was still, however, insufficient.

Three of the players, Jermaine Jenas, Andros Townsend and Tal Ben Haim, had played under Redknapp before (the former two at Spurs, the latter at Portsmouth), with further bids for players such as Peter Crouch unsuccessful.

Two of the players, Loic Remy and Chris Samba, arrived from the continent with high expectations on their shoulders, which were reflected in their higher wage demands. Other players that had been angling for a big money move, such as Porto’s Rolando, were tempted but ultimately unimpressed by the West London lucre; others, such as West Brom’s Peter Odemwingie… well, you what happened there.

Finally, South Korean international Yun Suk-Young, whose name had been touted to managers of European clubs by enterprising agents since a solid but unspectacular Olympic Games, arrived from Chunnam Dragons. He is yet to make an appearance for QPR.

As you may well have suspected, this isn’t the first time that Harry’s activity in a transfer window has fallen into the categories ‘Players Harry Already Knows’ (see Jermaine Defoe, Younes Kaboul, Peter Crouch and Niko Kranjcar), ‘Mercenaries’ (Rafael Van Der Vaart, Paolo Futre, John Utaka anyone?) and ‘Players Pushed By Agents’ (Marco Boogers fills this parenthesis just fine on his own).

A word conspicuous by its absence here is ‘scouting’, the industry within which I work and also one which is becoming increasingly sidelined by the omnipotence of agents. Harry spoke of the ‘gang warfare’ between competing agents vying for his attention and the contents of Tony Fernandes’ pockets, and with such individuals promising a manager the world without needing to fear that their assurances would not be validated by the players they represent, it might be difficult to then to trust the words of a scout, whose report might be more non-committal due to a self-preservative instinct.

Niko Kranjcar is one of Harry’s favourites

The signing of Sandro, one of the major success stories of Harry’s transfer career, demonstrates this perfectly. Despite the Brazilian being a player of good pedigree – recently inducted to the full Brazilian squad, coming with glowing references from Dunga himself – and of a lower transfer fee and wage than a player such as Van Der Vaart (who signed hurriedly on deadline day two months prior), Redknapp still felt obliged to link the fate of the scout that recommended him (Ian Broomfield, also Harry’s chief scout at Portsmouth) to the player’s future performances:

“We’ll see whether Ian’s got a job on Wednesday…He raved about him. I couldn’t get out to Brazil to see him because it was in the season”.

Unlike the vast majority of Redknapp’s signings, Sandro’s value now undoubtedly exceeds the initial £6 million outlay. Is it coincidence that Broomfield had spent a month watching the player and received glowing reports from many sources before money was put on the table? Or that the player was signed in March but didn’t arrive in North London until August, giving him five months of preparation before embarking on the next stage in his career rather than the length of a desperate dash down a motorway or to an airport? Another Spurs spring signing, Luka Modric, didn’t work out too badly either.

I should say at this point that I am by no means damning Harry Redknapp’s methods – he is a hugely successful and capable manager. I write on behalf of the scouts, who during my time working in the beautiful game, have seen their influence in player recruitment decrease year on year.

With constant technological advancements and improvements in global communications and infrastructure, it is easier than ever to find a diamond in the rough. The purchasing of players solely because they have shared a training pitch with the manager in the past, players that will go anywhere for the right number of zeros, and players that agents guarantee will be the difference between glory and failure, is no longer necessary, but seems to be more prevalent than ever.