There's been a lot of discussion about the "transfer committee" with a lot of people saying this affects how quickly we can complete transfers, and even that this "committee" was forcing players on the manager, something I find ridiculous.
Lets start with the basics and define a "committee"
noun
1 /kəˈmɪti/ [treated as singular or plural] A group of people appointed for a specific function by a larger group and typically consisting of members of that group: the housing committee [as modifier]: a committee meeting
More example sentences
1.1(In the UK) a committee appointed by Parliament to consider the details of proposed legislation: there was much scrutiny in committee
More example sentences
1.2 (Committee of the whole House) (In the UK) the whole House of Commons when sitting as a committee.
Origin
late 15th century (in the general sense 'person to whom something has been entrusted'): from commit + -ee.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/committeeBR used this term when he first came to the club, and it has since gained a lot of traction and has been used in various ways to critique our transfer process.
This is a fallacy, a myth, a lazy argument to excuse the manager from less successful transfers and try to pin the "blame" elsewhere.
Here's the actual truth, with thanks to BBB for posting the article last week in response to a debate we were having.
Rodgers sits on the committee along with managing director Ian Ayre, head of recruitment Dave Fallows and head of performance and analysis Michael Edwards.
Rodgers must secure the agreement of the committee that a player meets the club’s requirements and is worth pursuing.
However, the boss says the input of Ayre, Fallows and Edwards is a help rather than a hindrance in the recruitment process.
“Obviously, I am involved heavily in the identification of the player,” Rodgers told the ECHO.
“The principle idea when I first came in was that like any manager you will have the first call on a player and the last call.
“That’s the call on whether he’s good enough to continue to look at and try to organise a deal and the last call to say yes or no.
“There is a big part that goes on in between. In modern football you need to trust other people to do the work. That’s something we do here and that’s why we have had the success we’ve had.
“The finer details of that are left to Ian who does a terrific job and our other guys in that field who will go through the contracts. I am aware of where the situation is at right the way through the process.
“We will never bring in a player here who the manager doesn’t want in. That’s a great credit to the owners and the other people at the club.
“We work very closely together – it’s worth stressing that. It’s key that we are very much one club.
“We are really preparing for next season. I’ve had some very good meetings with our recruitment team. We are very much together as one.”
The negotiating of transfer fees and player contracts is carried out by Ayre and Fallows, who have been busy working on deals to try to secure the likes of Southampton’s Adam Lallana and Bayer Leverkusen’s Emre Can.
So, we can see from the above, in a direct quote, that BR has the first and last call on any player.
Now, it might seem unusual to some that the manager has to rely on other people to identify players, but in fact this is nothing new at all.
In the past, potential targets were identified by scouts, and at times, other members of the coaching staff before the manager went to watch the player for himself.
Yes, the Boot Room was a committee, a parliament of sorts, where Shanks and his team would talk about players (amongst other things) and thrash out details between them.
The difference today is that the process is more "scientific" in the sense that there is much more involved in the identification and recruitment process than simply turning up at a match and watching a player.
So lets have a look at te makeup of the committee and the people who meet:
BR - no need to say any more
Ian Ayre - just (literally) promoted to CEO from managing director, Ayre has been heavily criticised in some quarters (including me) for alleged penny pinching and inability to "get a deal done". This is a man who has done an excellent job on the commercial side, but has left us frustrated at times when it comes to player recruitment.
Ian Ayre is to be promoted to the role of chief executive at Liverpool FC – as the club looks to close in on a deal for Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Emre Can.
Ayre is to be rewarded for his work as managing director, and before that as commercial director, with an improved contract at the club.
He becomes the first permanent CEO the club has employed since Rick Parry, who left in 2009.
Among Ayre's successes are his role in persuading Luis Suarez to remain at Anfield last summer.
He is also credited with vastly improving the club's commercial performance, helping to secure landmark sponsorship deals with the likes of Warrior Sports and Standard Chartered.
The 51-year-old is currently working on a number of transfer deals, and could tie up a move for Can, the 20-year-old Leverkusen starlet, by the end of the week
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/ian-ayre-liverpool-fc-chief-7219079Despite our frustrations, BR has has praised his work, although his comment about "money men" has led many (including myself) to question his ability to close a deal. Others see him as FSG's useful fool who keeps the purse strings tight.
Dave Fallows - Not many people know much about him other than the fact he was "poached" from Man City, so here's a short article from when he was recruited:
LIVERPOOL FC are set to appoint Dave Fallows as head of scouting and recruitment as part of a double swoop on Manchester City.
Fallows will leave his role as first team scouting and recruitment co-ordinator with the Premier League champions to start work at Anfield.
The former Bolton Wanderers performance analyst will be joined by Barry Hunter, who will also quit City to be part of the new scouting set-up under manager Brendan Rodgers.
Since 2008 Hunter has been City’s chief scout for Italy, Switzerland and Russia.
The 43-year-old former Northern Ireland defender, who has also worked as a scout for Blackburn and Norwich, knows Rodgers well from their days at Reading together.
Securing the services of Fallows and Hunter from City represents a major coup for Rodgers as he looks to put the staff in place to help him realise his vision for the club.
Liverpool declined to comment but it’s understood that Fallows will form part of the new technical team working with Rodgers after owners Fenway Sports Group shelved plans to appoint a sporting director.
There are likely to be further appointments to the roles of head of development and head of medicine.
Fallows was at Bolton before moving on to City where he was key to building the club’s international scouting infrastructure using state-of-the-art technology.
“My role is primarily to co-ordinate all aspects of our scouting department, which includes liaising with scouts, fixture planning, managing the constant stream of reports coming in and effectively linking everything together,” Fallows explained back in 2010.
“The traditional role of a scout, where they went to a match and kept all the knowledge in their head rarely exists in modern day scouting structures.”
An experienced man who was targeted with a view to improving our recruitment process.
Michael Edwards - another man about whom little is known, but here's a brief bio
Head of Performance and Analysis
Edwards is the least well-known of the committee. He was appointed at the club by Damien Comolli having worked alongside the Frenchman at Tottenham where he was head of performance analysis. His role with Liverpool changed from “Head of Analytics” to “Head of Performance and Analysis” when Fallows was put in place last year.
Edwards graduated from The University of Sheffield in 2002 in Business Management and Informatics.
This seems like a nonsense title to many, but we need to be clear that technology plays a vital role in identifying players, with top flight clubs using tools like "Pro Zone" and many others to assess players. It would be a mistake to dismiss the impact that technology has had on football in general and recruitment in particular.
Gone are the days when a manager would watch a few videos of a player, the process is much more in-depth and intense in the 21st century.
Of course identifying a players physical attributes and positioning, tracking back, movement without the ball and everything else that Pro-zone (and other tools) can do is not the be all and end all.
We often hear managers talk about mental attributes as well, and although some of these can be identified by the use of various technology, it is important to talk to the player and clarify his mentality, something which both Rafa Benitez and BR have spoken of many times, and which both are very good at.
So, there's the members of this fabled "committee", what they actually do and how they contribute to the process.
At this point it is important to point out that most top flight clubs (across Europe) use similar structures to identify and target players. An amateurish old fashioned approach will never be as successful
in modern top flight football because the technology used can identify things the naked eye cannot.
Some also seem to think that this process begins as the season ends or a window approaches (such as January), but if you'll excuse the dismissive nature of the phrase, this is absolute bullshit.
The process of identifying players who meet the managers criteria is an ongoing, year round job.
The "committee" meet regularly to discuss players identified, and in many cases, negotiations are started well in advance of transfer windows opening.
Of course, discussing players outside of transfer windows is nothing new: it was one of the most important functions of the boot room.
Managers and their recruitment staff have always discussed players they would like to bring in.
Valuations are another grey area, but all top flight clubs are sent player profiles by those scourges of the game and vultures known as player agents.
The advantage of the technology used by the performance and recruitment people is that they can compare the attributes of similar players.
Then of course we have the poker game of actual negotiations.
I'd love it if we could just throw the money at a selling club and say "there you go", but the reality we must all face is that we are not in a position to be able to compete with the clubs who have mega rich owners.
This is the major stumbling block in my view, and the mega rich clubs have skewed the transfer market (and players wages) out of all recognition compared to the recent past of a decade or so ago.
So with this in mind the question we have to ask is about "value", something we hear a lot about from BR and the club.
Something I didn't know until recently (and I mean the last few days) is that agents and potential selling clubs will quite freely give a valuation of a player when enquiries are made. The valuations are sometimes honest, and other times are a pisstake, but they serve as a starting point for negotiations, and if a club is determined to buy a player and the selling club is willing to listen then generally a deal can be done.
When it comes to the price there can be many variables, for instance Beckhams price was always inflated above his playing worth because of merchandising opportunities, and equally a players wages are dependent on different things as well. It's only human nature that a player will want the best wages he can get.
Throw into the pot agents and their fees, selling clubs wanting to make as much as possible, sell on clauses to other clubs etc etc and what should be a fairly simple process becomes more complicated. Of course the process becomes simple again if a club can just throw money around like a pissed up sailor in a brothel, but again, we are not in a position to do that.
So to recap:
BR in his own words has the first and last say in player transfers.
The "committee" is in fact standard industry practise.
Recruitment is an ongoing process, that is year round.My own view on this is that we need to do better.
As many know, I have reservations about our wage policy and I have reservations about valuations and negotiations,
but trying to blame a "committee" for shortcomings that include our managers own is a crock of sh*t, simply because
the manager (in his own words) is heavily involved in the process, and has the first and last word on any potential player recruitment.