Leadership succession: exploring the recruitment process of 1st Team Managers by Sporting directors in English professional football

Whilst leader succession in professional football has received some scholarly attention, we have yet to understand the experiences of senior executives as part of this process. Here, the role of the sporting director is prominent during leader succession, although in this instance remains unexplored. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the experiences of sporting directors during the hiring process of 1st team managers in senior professional football. In-depth data were collected using semi-structured interviews with sporting directors (n=10), that were subject to a process of thematic analysis. The findings illustrated how potential candidates were identified, the approaches taken to evaluating candidates and how sporting directors skilfully managed and influenced working relationships with others (e.g., chairperson) based upon an understanding of capital theory. The study highlights the potential of capital theory in understanding sporting directors' organisational experiences with empirical and theoretical insights to inform a move towards professionalisation.