How Sunderland recruit players explained and how they used unusual structure to their advantage this summer

The arrival of Florent Ghisolfi at Sunderland in July was one of many moments in the summer that seemed to signal the club's significant ambitions, demonstrating to fans that they had no intention of simply making up the Premier League numbers.

Though Ghisolfi's time at AS Roma had not been as productive as hoped, here was a director of football with a proven track record in Europe's top divisions. It seemed clear from the off that he would not be arriving on Wearside unless the club were eyeing some eye-catching transfers both this summer and beyond. And so it proved.

Ghisolfi's arrival also raised some interesting questions about how Sunderland would operate moving forward, however. Adding such a high-profile operator to the club's executive team was always fraught with some element of risk. Sunderland had won promotion in part thanks to a smoothly functioning operation behind the scenes and to tinker with that in such a crucial transfer window was a brave move. Conventional wisdom would be that in an industry with big egos and where territory tends to be zealously guarded, too many voices can lead to discord and inefficiency. Sunderland saw opportunity and perhaps above all else, they saw agility.

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Speaking last week, Kristjaan Speakman said that Ghisolfi's arrival had been crucial to the club's aggressive recruitment drive for two key reasons. One, it brought a new and extensive contacts book. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, it allowed Sunderland to work quicker and across multiple deals simultaneously. That was a handy trick, in a window when the gulf between the Championship and the Premier League meant that the club were essentially building a new team from scratch. In the end, Sunderland's unusual recruitment structure gave them a significant edge on their rivals.

Why is it unusual? Not just because Sunderland are one of the few clubs operating with both a director of football and a sporting director (though Chelsea are one very high-profile example of a club with co sporting directors), but because their recruitment process is a collaboration that involves multiple figures from across the club. Head of recruitment Stuart Harvey has been one of the unsung heroes of the club's rise back to the top tier, getting through a vast amount of travelling to help build Sunderland's database of potential acquisitions and the connections needed to recruit successfully. That paid off handsomely in the early stages of the summer transfer window, when Sunderland were able to move swiftly on a number of long-term targets that Harvey and Speakman had long identified and been tracking in the event of promotion.

Sunderland also have an unusually hands-on owner, and this has been more obvious than ever this summer. Former head coach Gus Poyet once noted his surprise at this when invited by associate Juan Sartori to spend some time with the team during their pre-season trip to Spain in the summer of 2024. Louis-Dreyfus was not just a regular presence around the group, but taking an active interest in recruitment. It's widely known that it was Louis-Dreyfus who led the initial stages of negotiations with Granit Xhaka, convincing him to make the major career step of switching the upper reaches of the Bundesliga and European football for a relegation battle on Wearside. Some sporting directors might get a little twitchy at this encroachment, but the view behind the scenes on Wearside is that Louis-Dreyfus has the ability to connect with footballers who strongly identify with his story in building one of the most exciting young teams in Europe. Sometimes it will be Régis Le Bris whose influence is brought to bear, which we saw when one-time FC Lorient target Wilson Isidor joined last year. Sometimes it will be Speakman, as was clearly the case with Jobe Bellingham. Ghisolfi's pre-existing network very clearly opened new doors this time around. Sunderland's view is that whatever edge they have in a deal, they ought to use it. The changing nature of their staff and recruitment team now means they now have a variety of footballing backgrounds, increasing the leagues they can confidently recruit from and the languages they can communicate in. In short, they can work faster and smarter.

This isn't the same as saying Sunderland's approach is scattergun. They have a clearly defined process for negotiations, which begins when potential targets are sent a video clip (usually via the agent) which outline the club's recent journey back to the top tier. Short and sharp, it highlights the passion of the fanbase and also the club's status as one of the most exciting stories in football right now. From there, more formal presentations are held which outline the club's facilities, playing philosophy etc. The roles within this process are clearly designed to maximise the impact on potential recruits in a short period of time.

Though his voice is a very powerful one, much of the harmony rests on a head coach unusually happy to join at the end of the process in Régis Le Bris. Ambitious but happiest on the training ground and in analysis sessions, Le Bris will give his view towards the end of the process and is key in speaking to new recruits, but he's comfortable letting the recruitment team getting on with the work on a day-to-day basis. Key to this summer's success has been Speakman's willingness to adapt and accept the arrival of Ghisolfi, which many may have taken as a slight having overseen two promotions in four-and-a-half seasons on Wearside. Insiders say the key is having a strong sense internally of what makes a Sunderland player and crucially for this season, what is required to succeed in the Premier League. That focus allowed quick assessments to be made on players from across the variety of voices involved in recruitment, and deals to swiftly progress when there was consensus. No football club is ever fully harmonious, but Sunderland have found the chemistry to be productive.

Sunderland's recruitment approach isn't flawless, far from it. That they currently have a significant number of players on the fringes of the squad who are struggling to find new clubs but have no realistic chance of breaking into Le Bris's squad is testament to that. Particularly when recruiting from outside of the UK in recent years, there have been misses than hits. The early indications this season, however, is that their vision for the transfer window and their plan to execute it weren't far off the mark. It's a club that looks increasingly to be ahead of the curve, rather than behind it, and Ghisolfi's arrival has been key.

The key question at Sunderland moving forward

How those relationships behind the scenes develop from here, only time will tell. With a such a significant amount of work to be done following Ghisolfi's arrival, there was little time to clearly define roles or spend too much time debating who looks after what. Sunderland just had to crack on. That fluidity and agility proved to be a strength, but it is now likely that the work to more clearly distribute responsibility will begin. The brief in overseeing a Premier League club, not just with regards to the first team but also a category one academy, mean a bolstered executive team is inevitable and it would be no surprise to see more teams going down this route. How Sunderland continue to strike the right balance in the months ahead will nevertheless be fascinating to watch.

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