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Arsenal Hire Richard Garlick To Replace Huss Fahmy
- Thread starter Mo Britain
- Start date
- Replies 103
- Views 12,310
Ibadan
Thread Bump Police
As the resident aesthete of AM, I'm very pleased by this appointment.
Don Raul's sacking cost us someone intimate and respected within footballing's corridors of influence. I thought it was very embarrassing that Arsenal were barely mentioned when the "Project Big Picture" controversy erupted.
With the loss of Dein, Gazidis and now Raul we've been lacking any real presence in shaping the narratives and objective of both the domestic and international game. I'm hoping Garlick has very oily hands as we need to grease our way back into the spotlight.
Don Raul's sacking cost us someone intimate and respected within footballing's corridors of influence. I thought it was very embarrassing that Arsenal were barely mentioned when the "Project Big Picture" controversy erupted.
With the loss of Dein, Gazidis and now Raul we've been lacking any real presence in shaping the narratives and objective of both the domestic and international game. I'm hoping Garlick has very oily hands as we need to grease our way back into the spotlight.
Highbury_2006
Village Idiot
Yes, a mafioso is definitely what this club need.
Highbury_2006
Village Idiot
Club statement:
Richard Garlick is joining Arsenal as director of football operations.
Richard, who is currently director of football at the Premier League and was previously director of football administration at West Bromwich Albion, will join the club in the coming months.
He will be a member of the Arsenal executive team and will be working closely with technical director Edu, manager Mikel Arteta and academy manager Per Mertesacker.
His responsibilities will include football operations in the first team and academy, all player contract management and relationships with football's governing bodies.
Richard, a qualified solicitor specialising in sports law, has been at the Premier League since 2018. He was previously at West Bromwich Albion for eight years.
Richard Garlick is joining Arsenal as director of football operations.
Richard, who is currently director of football at the Premier League and was previously director of football administration at West Bromwich Albion, will join the club in the coming months.
He will be a member of the Arsenal executive team and will be working closely with technical director Edu, manager Mikel Arteta and academy manager Per Mertesacker.
His responsibilities will include football operations in the first team and academy, all player contract management and relationships with football's governing bodies.
Richard, a qualified solicitor specialising in sports law, has been at the Premier League since 2018. He was previously at West Bromwich Albion for eight years.
Moah
Well-Known Member
Never heard anything bad about Garlics so there is that at least.
Country: England
Looks crap.
Artisan
Not Emery's Old Pal
Isn't he basically in a similar position Fahmy was when we appointed him? Why are people pretending his qualifications are superior?
<<reed>>
Lidl Tir Na Nog
The Garlic guy was appointed 10 minutes ago, but yousif is already on his payroll, impressive.
Artisan
Not Emery's Old Pal
Yeah quite surprised people aren't immediately convinced by some West Brom reject myself tbh.
Highbury_2006
Village Idiot
As far is i know he isnt a West Brom reject. But according to some people we only recruit rejects so whatever.
Player:Saliba
All Huss Fahmy had done was so contracts for Sky cycling team hadnt he?
This guy held mtiple positions within West Brom and has just been DoF of PL for two years?
Also Huss Fahmy forgot to submit paperwork for Saliba loan so until this guy fu¢ks up like that he's more qualified
Country: Wales
Sounds like more than just what Huss Fahmy had then no?
Artisan
Not Emery's Old Pal
If it's true that he was at one point a DoF there before they decided to shunt him to other more suitable roles then I think reject wouldn't be an unfair description.
Not judging him as a failure btw, just saying not convinced by his credential just because he held some seemingly pointless position at PL.
Huss also ended contract talks with Balogun. Probably his biggest crime imo.
Artisan
Not Emery's Old Pal
I thought he was involved in negotiating the TV deal with the PL? In which case, fair enough he really had zero qualifications.
Though as far as I know according the the rumour mill, he had pretty much lost his position by the time the Saliba fiasco happened, so not sure it's fair to blame that one on him instead of Edu and Co.
- Thread starter
- #76
Mo Britain
Doom Monger
I have no memory of starting this thread. Has someone tampered with my account or do I need to consult my geriatric consultant?
What does a director of football for the premier league do? Isn't it purely administrative and legal? He's working with clubs not within a club.
We still have a massive price of the puzzle missing in terms of an actual dof who does more than wear suits and smoke cigars.
We still have a massive price of the puzzle missing in terms of an actual dof who does more than wear suits and smoke cigars.
Country: England
Player:Rice
Bit of an interview with Garlick discussing his role at WBA before he joined up with the FA. I remember him being talked about highly at the time.
At the end of next month, Richard Garlick will bring an end to his eight-year stint on the Baggies board before taking up a new role with the Premier League.
The former lawyer joined the club in the summer of 2010 as a legal director, before spending a season as technical director in 2013.
He was then given the wide-ranging title of Director of Football Administration in 2014, a post he has occupied ever since.
“I’ve read people saying ‘I don’t really know what he does’ and that’s good in a way,” said Garlick yesterday, as he reflected on his time at the club.
“I’m not quite sure you could say any job spec exists, it’s just grown organically as we’ve gone along.”
And even though his time at The Hawthorns has ended on the sad note of relegation, he’s proud of the club’s eight-year stay in the top tier.
Whether it’s dealing with the police who are demanding a player pays a parking fine, a horse that is running loose at the training ground, providing a sounding board for players, or forcing an important transfer through, Garlick is one of the men who has made Albion tick during the best part of a decade.
''When I look back from when I first joined the club, it was all about survival in the Premier League,” he said.
“I remember that transfer window was a real eye-opener, having come out of private practice at a stable law firm into this Wild West. Nothing prepares you for it.
“We played Chelsea away first game and we lost 6-0 and I thought to myself, what have I done, there’s no way we’re going to survive.
“But look what happened over the next eight seasons. I know this season has been very difficult – but if I look over it as a whole, it’s fantastic that a club of this size has not just maintained itself in the Premier League but been very competitive.
"Even in this final season when we’ve had our problems, the way we finished with that team you could see it was a competitive team, it just wasn’t calibrated in the right way.”
Garlick’s remit has been a varied one during his time at the club but one of his main roles has been negotiating contracts with players and their agents. And there have been some strange requests down the years.
“I’ve got two,” he smiles. “During negotiations for the first one the agent suggested his mum needed some new gates for her house and the club should pay for them.
“To which my response was, given how much we’re paying him a week do you not think the son can afford to pay?
“The second one, myself and (former technical director) Dan (Ashworth) were in the room with the player and I don’t think he had an agent at the time.
“The requests that he made were astounding in terms of wages and signing on fees.
“But the best thing is that he asked for was a buy-out clause if we got relegated where he could leave for free, but only to five named clubs - Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Hamburg.
“I was trying not to laugh! I was thinking it would be West Ham, Everton, Southampton, not any of the top six.
“When he said Bayern Munich I’m looking at Dan going ‘is he taking the piss?’
“It was in his contract, we agreed to it! But only because we knew we were agreeing to something that was never going to happen.
“That was one of the few quirky ones we did because we got a reputation for being a club that didn’t do sweeteners.”
One of the deals Garlick is most proud of is one of the earliest ones he worked on, and arguably one of Albion’s best signings of the Premier League era.
Not only does it shed a little bit of light on the flurry of activity that goes on behind the scenes in the ‘Wild West’ of the transfer market, but it sheds light on Garlick’s valuable people skills under pressure.
“I’m not going to take the credit for discovering Peter Odemwingie, that was Dan and the recruitment department and the scouts,” said Garlick.
“We’d just lost 6-0 against Chelsea and Peter had come in but his deal had got delayed because he turned up with one agent and when we put the paperwork through the FA said he’s got a different agent representing him.
“Fortunately we knew the agent we’d signed his paperwork with so we called him up and brokered a deal but it took a couple of days.
“The problem with Peter was that he gave mandates out like confetti. There were two agents we were dealing with and we ended up in a dispute with another one who claimed he represented him.
“This all came off the back of South Africa World Cup, apparently it was agent central down there.
“Then he needed a work permit as well. Obviously Robbie (Di Matteo) was jumping up and down, Peter was training here but nothing had gone through.
“We needed international clearance by 12pm on Saturday but by this point the Russian Federation just weren’t bothered.
“It was like ‘it’s past 5 o’clock, it’s Friday, it’s a national holiday, we’re all going home.’
“We were desperately scrambling around to get a contact, I got hold of this lady called Lina.
“It was about 11pm, I was the only one left. She was in a cafe in Russia but she had her laptop.
“It was a bank holiday, I remember she phoned me saying we haven’t got any wifi in the cafe, I’m not going to be able to do it. I pleaded with her, told her we’ve got a game tomorrow.
“I remember it got to 11.30pm and I thought it’s not going to happen, I drove halfway up the road, and I got a message saying it had gone through so I turned the car back around, put it on the system it all cleared through.
“I sent it through to the FA, that night I got confirmation from FA and Premier League he was clear to play.
“They were banking on him starting against Sunderland, he started and scored the winning goal. Afterwards Robbie gave me a big kiss and a big hug. I was proud to get that done.
“Sometimes in this role you feel you can’t affect things on the pitch, whereas at that time I could see that had a real direct effect.”
Just as important as some of the deals that are completed, are those deals that are pulled out of.
In 2015, Albion pulled the plug on a £5m deal for Tottenham defender Fazio and a year later they backed out of a £16m deal for West Ham striker Diafra Sakho after he failed a medical.
“We had Fazio here for three days,” said Garlick. “But there were contractual issues he wouldn’t budge on.
“Diafra Sakho too. He was another one that took a lot to sort out, it was very difficult with agents. You’ve seen the circus that surrounds him.
“As a club, I don’t particularly ever want to say a player has failed a medical, because it’s not good for that player’s career or that club.
“You wouldn’t like it if one of your players went over and they say he’s crocked. It’s a bit of an unwritten rule that would never blame it on a medical.
“It’s very rare you find a perfect scan. You could always fail a player on a medical if you wanted to.”
But the transfer window is only open for around a quarter of the year, and Garlick’s role was far more wide-reaching than that.
“People fly through the doors saying, ‘the police have just arrived in the car park, a player hasn’t paid a parking ticket’. And I have to deal with that. Why? You’re a lawyer.
“Players tend to feel that parking restrictions don’t apply to them all the time – that’s the same at every club.
“Or there’s a horse loose on the back field, the chairman wants you to make sure it’s gone by the end of the day. How am I going to get rid of a horse?
“Because you’re the only lawyer in the building people come to you with whatever problem they’ve got, whether it’s personal – I’ve got this dispute with the plumber – through to international transfers, work permits, and shirt sponsorship deals.
“I remember when HomeServe put that ‘fantastic’ red house on the front of our shirt.
“I had a screaming match with Jonas Olsson once because he’d been fined for dissent bizarrely, and he was not having it.
“He just kept going off on one, and then he would calm down before getting himself worked up again.”
At the end of next month, Richard Garlick will bring an end to his eight-year stint on the Baggies board before taking up a new role with the Premier League.
The former lawyer joined the club in the summer of 2010 as a legal director, before spending a season as technical director in 2013.
He was then given the wide-ranging title of Director of Football Administration in 2014, a post he has occupied ever since.
“I’ve read people saying ‘I don’t really know what he does’ and that’s good in a way,” said Garlick yesterday, as he reflected on his time at the club.
“I’m not quite sure you could say any job spec exists, it’s just grown organically as we’ve gone along.”
And even though his time at The Hawthorns has ended on the sad note of relegation, he’s proud of the club’s eight-year stay in the top tier.
Whether it’s dealing with the police who are demanding a player pays a parking fine, a horse that is running loose at the training ground, providing a sounding board for players, or forcing an important transfer through, Garlick is one of the men who has made Albion tick during the best part of a decade.
''When I look back from when I first joined the club, it was all about survival in the Premier League,” he said.
“I remember that transfer window was a real eye-opener, having come out of private practice at a stable law firm into this Wild West. Nothing prepares you for it.
“We played Chelsea away first game and we lost 6-0 and I thought to myself, what have I done, there’s no way we’re going to survive.
“But look what happened over the next eight seasons. I know this season has been very difficult – but if I look over it as a whole, it’s fantastic that a club of this size has not just maintained itself in the Premier League but been very competitive.
"Even in this final season when we’ve had our problems, the way we finished with that team you could see it was a competitive team, it just wasn’t calibrated in the right way.”
Garlick’s remit has been a varied one during his time at the club but one of his main roles has been negotiating contracts with players and their agents. And there have been some strange requests down the years.
“I’ve got two,” he smiles. “During negotiations for the first one the agent suggested his mum needed some new gates for her house and the club should pay for them.
“To which my response was, given how much we’re paying him a week do you not think the son can afford to pay?
“The second one, myself and (former technical director) Dan (Ashworth) were in the room with the player and I don’t think he had an agent at the time.
“The requests that he made were astounding in terms of wages and signing on fees.
“But the best thing is that he asked for was a buy-out clause if we got relegated where he could leave for free, but only to five named clubs - Manchester United, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Hamburg.
“I was trying not to laugh! I was thinking it would be West Ham, Everton, Southampton, not any of the top six.
“When he said Bayern Munich I’m looking at Dan going ‘is he taking the piss?’
“It was in his contract, we agreed to it! But only because we knew we were agreeing to something that was never going to happen.
“That was one of the few quirky ones we did because we got a reputation for being a club that didn’t do sweeteners.”
One of the deals Garlick is most proud of is one of the earliest ones he worked on, and arguably one of Albion’s best signings of the Premier League era.
Not only does it shed a little bit of light on the flurry of activity that goes on behind the scenes in the ‘Wild West’ of the transfer market, but it sheds light on Garlick’s valuable people skills under pressure.
“I’m not going to take the credit for discovering Peter Odemwingie, that was Dan and the recruitment department and the scouts,” said Garlick.
“We’d just lost 6-0 against Chelsea and Peter had come in but his deal had got delayed because he turned up with one agent and when we put the paperwork through the FA said he’s got a different agent representing him.
“Fortunately we knew the agent we’d signed his paperwork with so we called him up and brokered a deal but it took a couple of days.
“The problem with Peter was that he gave mandates out like confetti. There were two agents we were dealing with and we ended up in a dispute with another one who claimed he represented him.
“This all came off the back of South Africa World Cup, apparently it was agent central down there.
“Then he needed a work permit as well. Obviously Robbie (Di Matteo) was jumping up and down, Peter was training here but nothing had gone through.
“We needed international clearance by 12pm on Saturday but by this point the Russian Federation just weren’t bothered.
“It was like ‘it’s past 5 o’clock, it’s Friday, it’s a national holiday, we’re all going home.’
“We were desperately scrambling around to get a contact, I got hold of this lady called Lina.
“It was about 11pm, I was the only one left. She was in a cafe in Russia but she had her laptop.
“It was a bank holiday, I remember she phoned me saying we haven’t got any wifi in the cafe, I’m not going to be able to do it. I pleaded with her, told her we’ve got a game tomorrow.
“I remember it got to 11.30pm and I thought it’s not going to happen, I drove halfway up the road, and I got a message saying it had gone through so I turned the car back around, put it on the system it all cleared through.
“I sent it through to the FA, that night I got confirmation from FA and Premier League he was clear to play.
“They were banking on him starting against Sunderland, he started and scored the winning goal. Afterwards Robbie gave me a big kiss and a big hug. I was proud to get that done.
“Sometimes in this role you feel you can’t affect things on the pitch, whereas at that time I could see that had a real direct effect.”
Just as important as some of the deals that are completed, are those deals that are pulled out of.
In 2015, Albion pulled the plug on a £5m deal for Tottenham defender Fazio and a year later they backed out of a £16m deal for West Ham striker Diafra Sakho after he failed a medical.
“We had Fazio here for three days,” said Garlick. “But there were contractual issues he wouldn’t budge on.
“Diafra Sakho too. He was another one that took a lot to sort out, it was very difficult with agents. You’ve seen the circus that surrounds him.
“As a club, I don’t particularly ever want to say a player has failed a medical, because it’s not good for that player’s career or that club.
“You wouldn’t like it if one of your players went over and they say he’s crocked. It’s a bit of an unwritten rule that would never blame it on a medical.
“It’s very rare you find a perfect scan. You could always fail a player on a medical if you wanted to.”
But the transfer window is only open for around a quarter of the year, and Garlick’s role was far more wide-reaching than that.
“People fly through the doors saying, ‘the police have just arrived in the car park, a player hasn’t paid a parking ticket’. And I have to deal with that. Why? You’re a lawyer.
“Players tend to feel that parking restrictions don’t apply to them all the time – that’s the same at every club.
“Or there’s a horse loose on the back field, the chairman wants you to make sure it’s gone by the end of the day. How am I going to get rid of a horse?
“Because you’re the only lawyer in the building people come to you with whatever problem they’ve got, whether it’s personal – I’ve got this dispute with the plumber – through to international transfers, work permits, and shirt sponsorship deals.
“I remember when HomeServe put that ‘fantastic’ red house on the front of our shirt.
“I had a screaming match with Jonas Olsson once because he’d been fined for dissent bizarrely, and he was not having it.
“He just kept going off on one, and then he would calm down before getting himself worked up again.”
- Thread starter
- #79
Mo Britain
Doom Monger
If that was a bit I'd hate to see what the whole interview looks like.
**** Law, **** Emery, **** Garlick, **** Turpin next...blimey
