Rovers’ new director of football Gregg Broughton outlined what his role will entail, why he took up the opportunity, the vision of the owners, and the areas that will key to returning to the Premier League during an interview with the club website.

 

Q: How does it feel to be the new director of football at Blackburn Rovers?

GB: “It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind for the last 48 hours.

“It’s a pleasure to be here and I’m excited about the project and what we’re going to try and do with the football club.

 

Q: Why is it so exciting?

GB: “If you look at the history and the foundations that are in place here,  fantastic infrastructure, great staff, great Academy and came so close to making the play-offs last year.

“Everything is in place now.

“My job is to implement the vision of the owners, to try and become a sustainable Premier League football club, to put in place the owners vision, build a strategy that will help to deliver that and to ensure we’re joined up and working in the same direction.”

 

Q: Tell us a bit about the vision, because the priority of the football club is to get back to the Premier League.

GB: “It’s a priority, but it can’t be boom or bust, we have to try and do that in a sustainable way.

“First we have Financial Fair Play in the Championship, secondly it’s just the correct way to run a football club in my opinion and that’s what the owners have trusted me to deliver.”

 

Q: A director of football role, tell us a bit about that, what does it entail?

GB: “There’s lots of different names for it depending on which club you work for, but Blackburn have been very clear in what they want it to look like here in that it sits in the centre of six different areas within the football club.

“The first-team, athletic performance, medical, recruitment, analysis, and the Academy and my job is to sit at the centre of that and to ensure that it’s working smoothly at the same point.

“That goes back to the vision and making sure we’re all pulling in the same direction to overachieve.”

 

Q: The Academy is such a big part of this football club, how big a sense have you got of that?

GB: “My background is in Academy football, both within player recruitment and Academy management.

“I understand how important the Academy is.

“We know that Blackburn Rovers last season had almost 40 per cent of minutes from Academy graduates going through from 18-year-olds to players at the top end of the squad age wise

“We have to try and maintain that.

“From what I’ve seen, and even before this job was on the horizon, I know one or two people in the Academy here I began to follow the Under-18s in the FA Youth Cup, watched some the Under-23s and their incredible turnaround in at the back end of the season, so I know the talent and depth in the Academy and my job is to ensure they have clear pathways, firstly into our first-team but also to have future success in life if it’s not with Blackburn Rovers.”

 

Q: Does this club need to keep producing these players, we have a remarkable record in terms of having Academy products within the first-team, how important is that going forward?

GB: “Over 500 games, it’s incredible feat.

“There are going to be three things that allow us to overachieve on the pitch and for Blackburn Rovers to be back in the Premier League we have to overachieve.

“The three things are firstly, and primarily, the development of our own players, and that doesn’t stop when they get to 18 or 23, that’s development of players all the way through the club and we want players who are here to be dedicated to continually improving themselves.

“Secondly it’s to create really clear pathways through from the Academy and there are various different strategic things you can do to ensure that happens. Ultimately, you can’t force players through into the first-team, they have to earn the right to be there.

“Finally it’s excellence in player trading, we have to be ahead of the curve in player trading, and be clever in that to give ourselves a competitive advantage.”

 

Q: Recruitment is now such a key part of modern day football, isn’t it?

GB: “It is, and ultimately it’s one of the huge factors that both myself and the head coach will be judged on.

“Ultimately any club and any head coach can only deliver on the tools he’s been given to work with.”

 

Q: You have worked in recruitment before, as an Academy director, now coming in as a director of football, how important is that?

GB: “I started coaching at a young age, at 16, progressed through my coaching qualifications to my UEFA Pro Licence, not because I want to be a head coach, because I don’t, but it’s to have conversations on the same level as a head coach, and relate to what they’re talking about.

“Secondly, from a sports science and psychology point of view, to be able to go away and study in Liverpool many years ago, to be able to relate the medical and athletic performance side.

“Finally, through Academies and recruitment and I really understand the importance of those two things to any football club.”

 

Q: Day to day, how does a director of football role work?

GB: “It’s overseeing those areas and to be in the centre of those six things and to ensure the wheel is continuously spinning and that all leaders of those departments know they can come to me at any stage and know I’ll be there to support them.

“Ultimately it’s to ensure the vision and the strategy are always in place, that we communicate the message this isn’t going to be an overnight fix, that it’s going to take a little bit of time, and to ensure that we come back to the vision and stick with it.

“There will be testing times, times where we lose a few games in a row, because that happens to any football club, and as long as we always go back to the vision then I think we won’t have any issues.”

 

Q: You’ve worked in other countries as well, how invaluable are those insights, not just into football in this country, but football around the world?

GB: “I was very lucky that I was given my first full-time opportunity by a club that doesn’t exist any more, Rushden & Diamonds, but I joined them in what was the Conference at the time and we got promoted to the Football League.

“That was an amazing apprenticeship in terms of the people I was able to learn from there, Barry Hunter who’s now head of recruitment at Liverpool, Steve Spooner, Brian Talbot, amazing people to try and learn from every day.

“I then had the opportunity to join my hometown team, Luton, who were in the Championship at that stage and finished just outside the play-offs.

“We had the unfortunate circumstances of three successive relegations, which was a really tough time, but I had the chance to work with Mick Harford, a fantastic human being, who gave me autonamy and be able to implement the vision of the Academy on behalf of the club.

“What we were able to do was to develop players who were able to generate huge financial value for the football club and play games in the first-team.

“I had the chance to go and join Norwich City, firstly in a recruitment role and then in an Academy director’s role.

“I was part of a team that was able to build a squad that were able to get Norwich promoted to the Premier League and generate over £100m of transfer value that helped the club enormously because of where it was at that stage.

“My most recent adventure was probably the most exciting of them all because I wanted experience working abroad.

“I had the opportunity to go and speak with Bodo/Glimt and when I had the opportunity I didn’t know where it was, but when I met with them, the vision and the strategy of the club was absolutely clear.

“They knew what they wanted to do and how they wanted to get there.

“They’d been a yo-yo club and wanted to become a stable Norweigan Premier League club, based on young talent.

“My job was to assist them to deliver that strategy.

“If you’d have said to me that we would have won the league twice, for the first time in the club’s history, to have success in Europe, reach the quarter-finals at a packed stadium against Roma and take (Jose) Mourinho’s side to the very edge of his capability, and to do that with a team built on young Academy players, representing all of the north of Norway and I’d have said ‘maybe not’.

“But it shows that if you have a clear strategy, a clear vision and you don’t change it when things aren’t going right then there’s no limit as to what you can achieve.”

 

Q: This must be some opportunity that you feel to leave that behind given the success you had in Norway?

GB: “This is an opportunity for me to put all of that into practice, in a director of football role, at a club where the infrastructure is in place, Category One Academy, great first-team playing staff and an opportunity to shape and drive the vision forwards.

“I have to work really closely with Steve to make sure that’s communicated clearly to the supporters and everyone within the club, we have to make sure that message is delivered every day.

“The vision from the owners is very clear, they want to become a sustainable Premier League football club, that’s not going to happen overnight, but by having a clear plan and sticking with that plan, I really believe we can get there.

“I’m ready to throw myself in to it completely and I’m really excited by the opportunity.”

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