by The man who will take ultimate responsibility for Everton’s football department has insisted potential new owners 777 Partners can prove their critics wrong and has thrown his support behind manager Sean Dyche and sporting director Kevin Thelwell.
Johannes Spors, 777’s global sporting director, has given a rare interview to Telegraph Sport as the group awaits Premier League approval for its takeover of Everton.
Spors has already held talks with Thelwell, who will remain in charge of the club’s day-to-day football operations, and Dyche, and attended Everton’s victories over Newcastle United and Chelsea.
He was very impressed with the pair and explained why he believes Everton can benefit from becoming “the missing link” in the 777 group, which already includes Genoa, Standard Liege, Hertha Berlin, Red Star Paris and Vasco da Gama , besides. as minority stakes in Seville and Melbourne Victory.
During an hour-long video call from Saudi Arabia, where he was a guest of FIFA before the Club World Cup and on a business trip for 777, Spors stated:
Fresh from a two-day conference of all 777 group sporting directors in Berlin, which was sandwiched between his trip to Everton and his trip to Saudi Arabia, Spors described how the group’s model works with him at the top of the operation football.
“The local athletic directors depend on me,” Spors said. “They have full control on the ground, but we participate in the important decisions. I don’t make the decisions on every small contract, every academy player or physiotherapy decision. But the main ones, hiring a player, selling a player, decisions of coaches, decisions of sports directors. Those are the ones we want on board.
“I am in contact with all the clubs every day. In Europe I see the clubs very frequently. I would see two clubs a week and then the next week I would see another two; I try to combine it like this. It depends a little bit on where the pressure is, where the fire is to fight or where the situation is to resolve.
“It is very important that I am often in the clubs together with our director of data and analysis, Mladen Sormaz, and Marcel Klos. I need to be there. I watch the training sessions, I talk to the managers and I also talk to the coach and other people. I need to feel how this club lives. I need to anticipate what is coming and to do so I am traveling and I need to be in contact with the kids. I also have individual calls with each athletic director every week.”
Spors began his career as an analyst at Hoffenheim in Germany, working under Ralf Rangnick and followed the former Manchester United caretaker manager to RB Leipzig, taking charge of the recruitment when the German club was still in the second division. His first job as sporting director came at Vitesse Arnhem, where he worked closely with Chelsea and took young Armando Broja on loan, before moving to Genoa and beginning his relationship with 777.
The Everton acquisition has sparked close scrutiny of the 777 business, but Spors claimed that each club in the group has benefited from its ownership and outlined how it believes Everton can expect to make a profit.
“We want the clubs to be the best version of themselves,” said Spors. “We have the challenge that every club that joined the group had, in recent history, a development that was going in the wrong direction. We have to reverse the development of all clubs and now everyone is in a better situation.
“So we made the teams younger, we made each team cheaper in terms of wage bill, but we increased the value of the team. This is what we did at Red Bull, this is what I did in Arnhem with Broja and Lois Openda, who is now in Leipzig. This is what I do everywhere.
“If you look at the players we signed for Genoa, we have Albert Gudmundsson, he was a very cheap player and now he is the sensation of Serie A. Morten Frendrup [who has been linked with Liverpool] It was a very cheap signing from Denmark, which now has the best statistics in all of Serie A in many aspects. We have many examples of young players who have developed to be much better and more valuable.
“We want to identify players early and take advantage of development because, honestly, that’s what I think is so important to the success of a team, that you have a group that wants to develop and is striving to improve, like the young players. The Everton players are also on the same line.”
Spors has experience working at clubs where there was initial skepticism about new ownership models and said: “When I was at Hoffenheim, we received a lot of attacks because it was the first time in Germany that an owner had invested in a club. Something really unique for a German club. Then Red Bull was the second version of that.
“Of course, now I am at 777 and I see new clubs in the group and sometimes the fans are not happy with that from the beginning. But we see that the reaction is very fast, very positive in all the countries we are in because we really respect the history and tradition of each club. “We didn’t rebrand or anything like that and the experience is very visible because we changed these clubs very quickly and turned them into a much more successful version of themselves.”
“Everton will be the missing link”
It looks like Everton will be at the front of the queue if a player from one of the other 777 clubs proves they are ready to play in the Premier League or above.
“Everton will be the missing link in the group and may be the club that gets the players when Liege or Berlin, for example, prepare them,” Spors said. “This is something they can really participate in.
“We wouldn’t tell Liege or Berlin that they are now feeding Everton. Absolutely not, that would not be correct. “But if there is a logical step and someone is really good in Belgium and there are clubs the size of Everton interested, then of course we will do everything possible to make this player make an internal group transfer, rather than an external transfer.”
Everton’s impressive young centre-back Branthwaite, who had loan spells at Blackburn Rovers and PSV Eindhoven, is another example of how the club could use the group to send out their young players and gain experience.
“They get first-hand information about what is happening in all our clubs, where our talent is especially developing,” Spors said. “We not only connect sports directors, we connect youth academies, we connect scouting, we connect women’s football. Then there are other parts where they can obtain exclusive knowledge.
“By developing players, we can offer all levels of football. Playing in the Premier League is difficult for a young player. So, in the future, we can help them give playing time to young players. At 17-18 years old you just have to play, you have to get minutes. Honestly, that’s a secret behind Red Bull. They let them play very young in the first team and if the players need playing time at a lower level they have FC Liefering, Red Bull Salzburg’s second team. Many of the players who made great development like it [Dayot] Upamecano, Dominik Szoboszlai or Patson Daka started in that environment and this is something that we can also offer.
“Everton can already see the benefits of this with Branthwaite. He is a fantastic player. It’s the combination of his technique, his speed and the way he uses his body, in combination with the mentality and in combination with the experience at that age, that he gained from going on loan. These are the pillars that are super decisive for a great career and he contributes everything. He keeps pushing, but the moment he is in his career, he is really excellent.”
Spors has already taken a hands-on approach with Everton. He was at the wins over Bournemouth, Newcastle and Chelsea, and has been speaking regularly to Thelwell, who will update him when the acquisition of the 777 is confirmed.
“In recent months I have been to Everton very often and I love the stadium, the fans and the environment,” Spors said. “I really like what Kevin Thelwell is doing, the way he structured the football organization. I think the way he worked with the team is going excellently, along with the decision on Sean Dyche.
When asked if he already knew Dyche, Spors replied: “Yes, I have met him. It is brilliant. The whole Finch Farm training ground is fantastic, the people I’ve met are fantastic and meeting Sean Dyche was great. I met him at a longer meeting some time ago and around the games. It’s not just me, but also Mladen. [Sormaz] and some other guys. Sean is doing a really good job, he’s fantastic.
“He said after the Chelsea game: ‘That’s why I do this job: to help the players and see them develop.’ Even a few weeks ago when he explained what he sees in the players and what he believes will be possible, this is very visible on the field. This is what you want. “You want the club to exceed its possibilities in the games and maximize the result of the possibilities you have, and that is what you currently have.”
