Why the Sporting Director sits alongside the Manager at Leeds United

Underwood, who was appointed Sporting Director by Leeds in May 2025, explained that he and Manager Daniel Farke work side by side and both report into Managing Director Robbie Evans at Elland Road.

Speaking at TGG Live 2025 last October, Underwood explained: “I report to the Managing Director and, to get a really key point out early, our Manager reports directly to the Managing Director as well.

“There isn’t a hierarchical structure from a technical perspective. Ultimately, the Manager’s job is to win football matches. I see my purpose as to help him do that, it’s as simple as that.

“Ultimately, everything is geared towards supporting the Manager to be successful.

“Of course you want to protect the long-term interests of the club, but I think there’s a little bit of a fallacy in this idea that the club should have its own structure and then the Manager sits alongside, above, beneath, around, whatever, and it does its own thing.

“It’s just not possible to work in a positive fashion (doing that). All of his staff, all of his methods, the way he likes to work, are established before they arrive.

“In our view at Leeds, the responsibility is to plug into that and give it the best chance of succeeding. It’s critical that you give them all the support you possibly can.

“There is no use in trying to fight and trying to change and create something that doesn’t align or at least organise alongside what your Manager is trying to do.

“You need to be together to try to win and that’s ultimately our view. 

Underwood has worked for Leeds since 2014, initially as their Academy Manager, then Head of Football Operations and finally as Sporting Director. And the club have always been consistent in describing Farke as their Manager, not Head Coach, ever since he arrived in 2023.

The Yorkshire club have been one of the success stories of the Premier League season so far. Despite being one of the favourites for relegation, they currently sit 16th, eight points off the relegation zone.

Speaking at TGG Live 2025 at Old Trafford in October, on the Sporting Director Panel alongside Brentford Technical Director Lee Dykes and former Barnsley Sporting Director Mladen Sormaz, Underwood explained what his role entails.

“The responsibility I have is to make things work and get things done,” he said. “For me at Leeds, as a Sporting Director, I’m very lucky. I’ve got some great people working with me and around me.

“I have ultimate responsibility for the football side of the business. I have charge of recruitment and all of the disciplines that kind of support that along with the Academy and women’s football.

“So a broad remit, which is one of the fundamental challenges for most Sporting Directors now – being able to hold your own in all those different spaces but also add value if possible.

“We’re a newly promoted club to the Premier League and fundamentally our job is to stay there if we can. As Lee’s already said, it’s incredibly challenging and finding those competitive advantages, (they) really are few and far between really.

“We really are into the fine margins and the real detail of each of those disciplines and areas, whether that’s recruitment and finding the best players or leveraging the best sales or whatever you can do to trade your way up and through in the Premier League.

“Or if it’s just kind of eking out percentages from nutrition or sports science or those support areas. It’s a wide responsibility. I think the structures, the kind of sharp point of the organisation are different in every club.

“And a lot of the time it’s determined by ownership, and their perspective on what will fit their model and their approach to their investment best.”