Jutkiewicz moves straight from playing to scouting with Birmingham
Written by
Ian Westbrook
June 25, 2025
Birmingham City striker Lukas Jutkiewicz has moved straight from playing to becoming the club’s Lead Positional Scout.
Jutkiewicz spent nine years at St Andrew’s before retiring as a player in the summer after scoring 60 goals in 358 appearances and has wasted no time in moving into a new role with the club.
The club said the post “requires a hybrid approach to scouting, combining attendance at fixtures with video analysis to prepare detailed player reports. Utilising data, video and real-world reporting, Jutkiewicz will create holistic evaluations of potential player acquisitions”.
Jutkiewicz will be concentrating on fellow forwards and will provide the Championship new boys with “in-depth background reports on attacking talents, both domestically and internationally, which will build into player dossiers”.
He will also have to update positional shortlists from reports provided by analysts and scouts so that the club’s profiling model “remains consistent”.
Jutkiewicz said: “Now that my playing career has come to a close, I’m excited to begin a new chapter. I look forward to applying the knowledge and experience I’ve gained over my 20-year playing career in a different capacity and I will bring the same commitment and passion to this new role as I did on the pitch.”
‘Lukas knows the DNA of the club’
Director of Football Craig Gardner said the club’s recruitment team had changed dramatically in the past two years and added: “It will be a great environment for Lukas to both add significant value based on his experiences and learn from an outstanding team.
“Lukas knows the DNA of the club, he understands the fans and the city, so I am certain he will be a huge success and prove to be an important asset for the years ahead.”
Birmingham are not the first club to have scouts for specific positions on the pitch.
Brighton and Hove Albion switched to this model from a geographical system in April 2022. Four senior Scouting Managers each oversaw a different area of the team and a pool of scouts. They produced player reports and worked closely with the club’s recruitment analysts.
At the end of the 2022/23 season, Newcastle United completed their own position-specific scouting team by appointing five Positional Analysts, who were going to report into the club’s Head of Recruitment and Head of First Team Technical Scouting.
Adam Le Fondre is another striker who, like Jutkiewicz, has moved into scouting.
After a long career in the professional game, which included a spell in the Premier League with Reading, he joined City Football Group as a Video Scout last October, while continuing his playing career in the Northern Premier Division with FC United of Manchester.
He told the Reading Chronicle: “My ambition is to eventually reach a Head of Recruitment role, but I know it’s essential to earn that position. I’m fully prepared to climb the ladder and learn as I go, ensuring that by the time I retire, I’ll be ready for the next chapter.”
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