On Monday morning at Google’s snazzy headquarters in Pancras Square a group of students in a second-floor corner office are discussing the particular foibles of their day jobs. Dougie Freedman and David Moss are debating data and its use in recruitment while Steve Walsh, interjecting, points to how difficult it is to gain a true picture of a prospective signing’s character. Jim Fraser, Chelsea’s head of youth recruitment, is talking restrictions and how a failure to qualify for the Champions League leaves a gaping hole in the coffers. Meanwhile Les Ferdinand, operating in another world a few miles down the road at Queens Park Rangers, cracks a broad smile and offers to “play a little violin” in sympathy – to whoops of laughter.

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That is merely a snapshot. The exchanges are passionate, provocative and insightful, with the first intake enlisted on the Football Association’s new level five course for technical directors calling upon their own experiences while their host, Kirk Vallis, global head of creative capability development at Google, and a handful of consultants and tutors take it all in.

This is uncharted territory for the nine candidates, many in situ at clubs, on a 20-month course aimed at developing skills in a role the English game has belatedly embraced. That Manchester United operate without a sporting director increasingly feels quirky, although, judging by the noises from Old Trafford, that may be about to change. Burnley have advertised for a technical director, meaning nine Premier League clubsare set to have such a position by the start of next year.

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The course is the brainchild of Dan Ashworth, who will leave his role as the FA’s technical director to take up a similar post at Brighton next spring. The 47-year-old had championed a pathway for scouts and heads of recruitment to complement that already in place for coaching and medical staff. There was a vacuum which needed filling to give those working in a multidimensional role, or earmarked to take on such duties, a better chance of success.

The five‑tiered programme, drawn up after dialogue last year with a pilot group that included Paul Mitchell, now at RB Leipzig, and Nick Hammond, formerly of West Brom, mirrors the coaching educational structure, with the top level equivalent to the pro licence. It is not designed to teach people how to be sporting directors, not least because the demands of specific clubs vary wildly. But, by challenging candidates to be more open-minded on management techniques, the hope is they identify what can be adapted to their roles.

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“The course aims to stimulate and support them,” says Ashworth. “The role carries different titles – football director, sporting director, general manager – but more and more English clubs have recognised the value of someone with the club’s long-term interests at heart and not just winning on Saturday. Sporting directors look at the academy, at contracts and budgets, at short- and long-term talent identification, and act as a fulcrum for owners, boards, manager, the coaching staff and everyone. They are increasingly recognised as essential when it comes to implementing a philosophy at a club. So we asked the pilot group: ‘What do you wish someone had told you four years ago before you started in the job?’ and built the course from there.”

The six modules over nine get‑togethers tackle everything from critical thinking and self-awareness to analytics, via communication skills and managing the press. Before the sessions on leadership with Vallis and YouTube’s Terri Scriven there had been talks by Nokia Global’s head of leadership development, Joel Casse, Harry Bartlett from the SAS and Gemma Morgan, a Sandhurst graduate and the first woman awarded the Carmen Sword for outstanding performance as a young officer. A flight simulation is pencilled in with the RAF at Brize Norton to scrutinise decision-making under cognitive load (or, in football parlance, coping with transfer deadline day). Caspar Berry, who spent three years as a professional poker player, led the group in an examination of risk.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest From left: Dougie Freedman (Crystal Palace), Heather Cowan (Birmingham City Women) and Jim Fraser (Chelsea) listen to Terri Scriven of YouTube. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

More conventionally, there was a three-day visit to Germany, spending time at BMW scrutinising recruitment and with Hasan Salihamidzic at Bayern Munich, Stuttgart’s head of sport Michael Reschke and Red Bull Salzburg’s Christopher Vivell. “There are always subtle differences to their roles but the core issues are the same,” says Walsh, who played a key role at Leicester in their title-winning season before a spell at Everton. “Recruitment is key, so you need exhaustive knowledge of the players and the industry, but developing other skills to help communicate ‘up’ within a club, or develop your own team – whether scouting, medical, psychology or academy – is just as critical. Ultimately, all Premier League clubs will have someone in the role within the next 18 months. The course is trying to define the skillset required, and coming up with very interesting ways of doing that.”

The previous day had been spent at Wembley conducting role plays on “critical conversations” with a team of professional actors. The scenarios did not revolve around football – one involved a film director intent on casting Hugh Grant in a role, only for the studio to demand Steven Seagal play the part – but the parallels were clear. “I’ve been in football a long time, and in some really senior positions, but there has not always been this kind of training, to emerge with a win-win situation,” says Moss, who has overseen Celtic’s scouting operation and was head of football operations at Huddersfield after their promotion to the Premier League. “Coming to Google is just as illuminating. If the culture in a club is right, it means you have good people, a clear strategy and unity. So to see how Google recruit, their strategies for progression, the way they treat staff, the working environment, was fascinating. People have a spring in their step and are passionate about their work. Football clubs can learn a hell of a lot from a company like this.”

The role requires a bigger skill-set – it oversees specialists on sports science, scouting, analytics, mental health Mike Rigg, Fulham

Moss is armed with a master’s degree in sporting directorship from Manchester Metropolitan University, but each of the students on the FA’s course boasts experience or current employment at clubs with contrasting demands. Freedman is at Crystal Palace in the Premier League, Ferdinand consolidating QPR in the Championship and Grétar Steinsson with Fleetwood in League One. Matt Crocker is head of coach and player development at the FA, Heather Cowan oversees Birmingham City Women as general manager, Steve Morrow heads up Arsenal’s youth scouting division, while Brian Tevreden was Reading’s technical director until recently being appointed chief executive at the owners’ Belgian club, KSV Roeselare. It is a diverse group, and the onus is on each to cherrypick aspects addressed in the lectures that can benefit their specific role.

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The FA and its consultants, Leading Edge, provide each with an executive coach – a mentor from outside the game – to offer advice and support between sessions. Where resistance flares up most obviously is over an instinct to revert to the default: football has its own way of working, so how do any of the techniques advocated by big business apply? The game, as the cliche goes, is unique. “But why not challenge it, change it and improve it?” asks Mike Rigg, formerly a technical director at Manchester City, chief football officer at Fulham and head of talent management with the FA, now acting as a consultant. “There’s a new group of people coming into clubs with an unbelievable amount to offer who have not emerged along traditional routes, as ex-players turned coaches.

“They have studied the game, or are armed with master’s degrees or PhDs, and are raising standards whether as data analysts, scouts, counsellors, nutritionists or in medical departments. They are helping the game evolve and are a breath of fresh air bringing new perspectives, and their line manager would be the sporting director. That role requires a bigger skill set now because it effectively oversees specialists on sports science, scouting, analytics, welfare, wellbeing, mental health … hence this course giving people a better understanding of what the future game will be.”

Football is adapting. The hope is those students around the table at Google will be better equipped to oversee what happens next.