You might have seen some stories lately, usually sourced from someone you’ve never heard of in the Italian football media, that Tottenham Hotspur have either offered or are in discussions to offer a lifeline to former Director of Football Fabio Paratici. Don Fabio, who’s worldwide football ban ends in June for his role in the Juventus PRISMA and plusvalenza scandals, is keen to get back into football and that has put him on the radar of a bunch of clubs, most in Italy but also, so the story goes, Tottenham.
The various reports are breathless about Spurs bringing Fabio back to Spurs in some sort of senior leadership role. Would that be at a level equal to Technical Director Johan Lange? Maybe in replacement of Lange? Or perhaps in some other role? Nobody seems know, or want to say.
And that’s because, according to the Daily Telegraph, Spurs haven’t talked to Paratici at all about any potential job opening. Our new best friend Matt Law says Spurs haven’t entered into any negotiations to have Paratici ride back into North London on the back of a donkey while the first team waves palm branches by the side of the road. Paratici is still well regarded at Spurs, with Tottenham using him in an unofficial capacity as an “advisor” to the club, but that hasn’t led to any talks about him getting his/a job back.
Now, could it happen? I mean sure, anything’s possible. It’d be a bit of a weird appointment, especially since Spurs have notably pivoted from Paratici’s “scattershot” method of talent scouting and recruitment to Lange’s data-driven model that has been itself locked behind a black box impervious to leaks or news. My impression of Paratici is that he’s uhhhhhh not exactly a data driven guy, but perhaps bringing him back would lead to him being something of a foil to Lange’s more straight-laced approach to recruitment.
But again, contrary to all reports coming out of weird Italian sources, Law writes that nothing has happened yet and might not at all. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. But either way we should probably all take a step back a bit and wait for further developments from trusted sources.