The very recent departures of Alan Curbishley and Kevin Keegan sparked two similarities: both were managers with decades of experience, and their former clubs have this position that’s relatively new in football: the Director of Football.

Like what you can read at an online public dictionary, the Director of Football is the “link man” between the playing staff and the administrators. People like David Pleat and Avram Grant have held this position before.

But in my opinion, some old-style managers don’t like this role. Curbishley and Keegan aren’t the first managers to walk out because of the “interference of footballing affairs”. I can understand their sentiment; having players available or taken away without your discretion would be a horrible scenario for a club manager.

But football is an ever-changing sport, and managers need to adapt to having somebody buying and selling their players behind their backs. So how will this role work? What is bad is when these directors simply don’t care what the manager thinks or wants. The admins, who in this case would be closer to the director than the coach, have a role in this too. They think they are wiser than the coach and demand some of these players to play in the first team, or sell this key player to generate funds and the like, without ever knowing what’s inside the dressing room, what do the players really feel, assessment of the players’ fitness levels, what tactics the coach is looking to employ, etc.

A case of admin fiddling would be Hearts. They once seemed to be a side that’s capable of breaking the dominance of the Glasgow sides since Aberdeen. Now after a disastrous managerial crisis in recent years they finished 8th last season. Romanov’s affairs were a double-edged sword in which good but unknown players could be bought for the team, but surely it damaged the fans’ mentality of suddenly feeling alien with the team they support, and the reputation of Scottish football of having a satellite Lithuanian team there.

So in the end, if a club want to appoint a Director of Football they need to get a coach who thinks the modern game first. Then appoint a very understanding person for the job. Now I wonder if it’s Gianluca Vialli who would take over at St. James’ Park?