On November 4 last year, Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou and chief football officer Scott Munn took to the stage of Australia House, the ornate hall in central London that has been the home of the Australian diplomatic mission to the UK since 1918. The event was billed as ‘An Evening with Ange’, opening with speeches from the Australian high commissioner, Stephen Smith, and the Greek ambassador, Yannis Tsaousis.
When Munn was on stage, he told a story. The previous week, Spurs had hosted Manchester City in the Carabao Cup and Aston Villa in the Premier League. Munn had previously worked for City Football Group, first at Melbourne City and then as the CEO for their Chinese operations. The technical director, Johan Lange, had joined Spurs from Aston Villa, where he had been sporting director from 2020 to 2023. So Munn had dubbed that week ‘the Scott Munn and Johan Lange Cup’. Postecoglou had assured him not to worry and that Spurs would win both games. And he was right: Spurs blew both City and Villa away with brave, intense, attacking football.
At the time, the week looked like another step in the right direction. In hindsight, it was the apex of what has become a disastrous season. But either way that evening — days before the dispiriting defeats to Galatasaray and Ipswich Town — was a moment of confidence, optimism and alignment. It felt as if the whole club was moving together in the right direction.
Just over five months on, Tottenham Hotspur does not feel like such a happy, settled place. Since that night, Spurs have played 22 league games and taken just 21 points. Their season hangs by a thread, and they will need to win away at Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday night to keep it alive. And the public sentiment, the adoration of the crowd that elevated Postecoglou in his first year, has now seemingly gone forever.
The failure of Tottenham’s season raises plenty of questions about the boardroom, the dugout and the playing staff. But at the heart of it is whether the football leadership team that was established in 2023 can survive into the next season.
The year 2023 was effectively Year Zero for this iteration of Tottenham Hotspur. It was the year when the managing director of football, Fabio Paratici, was banned from football activities for 30 months and then forced to resign in April when he failed to overturn the ban. It was the year when Antonio Conte refused to sign an extension to his 18-month contract and was then sacked with 10 games left after destroying his players in an infamous press conference on March 18.
With the old order collapsing, Tottenham embarked on one of their almost-annual relaunches. There had been an external review of the club’s footballing activities (“to ensure we apply our values of innovation, drive and excellence”, Daniel Levy wrote in 2023 on the club website). This led to the creation of a new role — chief football officer — to coordinate all football departments. Munn was appointed in this role in April, officially starting his work in September.
Postecoglou was the next big appointment, arriving at the end of the season. He shone in interviews and was identified as the best candidate to deliver the cultural change and football rebuild that the club needed. And then, in October 2023, Lange arrived from Villa into another newly created role as technical director, taking charge of recruitment.
But as we approach the end of the 2024-25 season, it looks as if the football hierarchy set up in 2023 is likely to change again. And not just because Postecoglou finds his own future in severe doubt after a season that Levy described last month as “highly challenging”. Postecoglou is the public face of the institution, the figurehead who speaks to the media every few days, having to answer for the club’s strategy in public. But even if he is replaced by the end of the season, that will not be the only big change at Spurs this summer.
Tottenham have already announced the first, the arrival of Vinai Venkatesham this summer, joining the club’s board as the new chief executive officer (CEO). This is part of a move from the club to strengthen their corporate structure, with Levy explaining last week that growth meant they had to “expand our executive management”. In practice, this will mean Venkatesham taking on some responsibilities from Levy and other board members in his new role.
But even the arrival of Venkatesham is unlikely to be the end of the changes to executive roles at Spurs this summer. Multiple sources have told The Athletic that Munn’s future as chief football officer is in severe doubt, too.
Since Munn came in two years ago, he has overseen significant changes behind the scenes, leading to overhauls of departments, including scouting and medical, that required substantial staff turnover. He has not been afraid to ruffle feathers, to put it mildly. Perhaps that is inevitable in a role that demands hiring and firing.
Assessing the success or otherwise of Munn’s overhauls remains difficult, even with on-pitch results as poor as they have been this season. Clearly the medical department has struggled this season amid an injury crisis of unprecedented scale and requires continued work. There is still a view at the club that the changes Munn has overseen were long overdue. This was not exactly a perfectly functioning football club — or medical department — when Munn arrived in 2023.
Some would even argue that the changes in how Spurs recruited players — which led to the departures of some long-standing scouts and a replacement with a modern approach — has led to an improvement in talent identification at the club. Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray, Wilson Odobert and Antonin Kinsky are all far-sighted purchases. No one would argue that the recruitment has been perfect or even sufficient for what Postecoglou needed. But its failures may owe more to strategy than to scouting.
And whatever happens to Munn, there is still the lingering figure of Paratici in the background. Munn has, to an extent, operated in the shadow of Paratici during his time at Spurs. Paratici has still been an external consultant to Levy over the last two years while he was banned from official work with clubs (that work, advising Levy on football matters, is consistent with the limited scope of Paratici’s ban). Some people at Spurs have said over the last two years that they missed Paratici in his old official role, given his charismatic personality and his winning CV from his time at Juventus.
In July, Paratici’s 30-month ban from official football work will be over. At that point, he would be able to work for clubs again. As it stands, a restoration at Tottenham is not on the cards. It is easy to be nostalgic about the Paratici period, but he brought plenty of drama to the club, as well as a few well-judged signings.
But whether Tottenham go back to an earlier organisational model this summer or forge ahead with a new one, they will start next season embarking on yet another brave new era, another relaunch, another attempt to get the balance right on and off the pitch.
(Top photo: Fred Lee/Premier League)