Sven Mislintat - one of Europe’s most respected player recruitment experts - is joining us from Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund.

He is credited with creating the pipeline of young talent at Dortmund which has produced the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Shinji Kagawa and Ousmane Dembele.

Sven has been at Dortmund for 10 years and becomes our head of recruitment with responsibilities across the first team and academy. He starts in December and will work closely with manager Arsène Wenger and chief executive Ivan Gazidis, plus other coaches, the background analytics team and our global scouting network.

Arsène Wenger said: “We are delighted that Sven is joining us. Identifying and developing talent is a core part of our philosophy and Sven has an outstanding track record over many years. We look forward to him taking our existing recruitment approach forwards.”

Meanwhile our long-serving chief scout Steve Rowley, who has been responsible for unearthing many talents over his 25 years of employment with the club, has stood down from his role but will continue to maintain his relationship and support us with ad hoc scouting on a consultancy basis.

Wenger said, “We would like to thank Steve Rowley for all his hard work over many years for the club. He has been a key figure in our recruitment of so many top players and has travelled thousands and thousands of miles, watching hundreds of games for us during his time at the club. We wish him well for the future.”