Sharp joins Everton Board as Non-Executive Director
Sharp has been Everton's Players' Life President since 2000
Written by Training Ground Guru — January 5, 2022
EVERTON legend Graeme Sharp has been added to the club’s Board as a Non-Executive Director.
The Scot played 447 games for the Toffees between 1980 and 1991 and is the second-highest scorer in their history, behind only Dixie Dean. Sharp will remain as the club’s Players’ Life President, a role he has held since 2020.
He said: “This club is in my blood. I have enjoyed many great days as a Blue - and joining the Board and being able to play a part in shaping Everton’s future is one of the greatest honours of all.
“I look forward to working with my fellow Board members and take my responsibility as a custodian of our great club very seriously.”
Chairman Bill Kenwright added: “We were determined to have someone join us with not only great knowledge of Everton but also extensive football insight and experience. Someone who could support and challenge.
“And in Sharpy’s case we’ve got this in abundance.”
David Slemen, the founding partner of Elite Performance Partners, wrote an in-depth article for TGG about the Non-Executive Director (NED) role in 2020. He described it as one of the five key roles for high-performing teams.
Slemen described the NED as a “senior advisor who can take a step back and inform, challenge and support the decisions being made by the Executive.”
He added: “They ask the right questions and are able to provide answers for those who don’t have hands-on experience of sport and are grappling with performance choices alongside the commercial agenda.
“The role of the NED is to bring gravitas, knowledge and difficult questions to the fore, hopefully stopping the recurrence of mistakes.”
NEDs are common in the corporate world, yet rare in football.
“In football… it is clear that most Boards do not incorporate the expertise they are selling, which is the performance of their teams,” Slemen wrote.
“Often, decisions are left to people who may love the game, who might even have played it, but who have little or no real experience of making strategic decisions on the performance side of sport.”
Sharp’s pedigree at Everton is beyond doubt, but does he have recent experience of best practise in high performance?
The former striker managed Oldham for more than two years after replacing Joe Royle in November 1994, and also managed Bangor City in 1997/98, before becoming an Everton Ambassador in 2000.
The club are still carrying out a strategic review following the departure of Sporting Director Marcel Brands at the start of December. Head of Recruitment and Development Gretar Steinsson and Manager of Scouting and Operations Dan Purdy exited the club a few days after the Dutchman.
