Who Controls Premier League Clubs? Head Coaches, Managers and Sporting Directors Explained

In an era where elite football clubs have employees into the thousands, the increasingly varied job titles in the modern game can leave fans unclear as to where control of a football club really lies

So who really makes the decisions at your Premier League club? 

Head Coach vs Manager: What’s the Difference?

Though owners are omnipresent in the background, football fans often think of the manager as the one in charge, though in recent years, this assumption has been challenged.

This comes from the rise of the head coach, where, while the terms are often used interchangeably, the wording is important when understanding how much power the individual has.

To date in the Premier League, there are 11 head coaches and eight managers, according to their respective clubs. The exception is Mikel Arteta–the longest serving in the league–whose official title is ‘First-Team Manager’. 

Arteta provides an interesting case, having initially been appointed as head coach in 2019 but seemingly receiving a promotion to his new role after his contract was extended in 2024. 

With the change came an acknowledgement from the club as to how much of a say Arteta has with Arsenal’s chief executive at the time saying: “Right from the day he walked through the door he was doing much more than being our head coach. So we’re going to be changing his job title going forward.”

The role of manager typically has more power and control across the club as a whole than the head coach. Sir Alex Ferguson or Brian Clough are examples–managers whose names became synonymous with the club they represented.

Arsene Wenger is another example of the power the role traditionally has. Becoming the Premier League’s second foreign manager in 1996 (alongside Ruud Gullit), Wenger left Japanese side Nagoya Grampus Eight for Arsenal, and brought with him what was a revolutionary approach to his team’s health and fitness. Featuring his famous Mars bar ban, Wenger controlled not only how the team trained, but how they ate. 

A more recent example is Unai Emery, who has become one of the few traditional managers left in the league during his time at Aston Villa, where he reportedly has ”top-to-bottom control” at the club.

In an era of increasing turnovers and growing foreign investment, however, owners and executives seem more and more reluctant to provide this level of control to one person–a trend that has given rise to the head coach.

Owners, Presidents and Sporting Directors

If head coaches have less power than before, who now has control? The answer to this is twofold.

First, we can consider the delegation of responsibilities, where modern roles such as player-care managers or nutritionists naturally take some responsibilities away from the head coach.

Then, we can turn our attention to senior executives, who have been common in Europe far longer than in the Premier League. 

In Spain, four clubs remain under the Socios (member) structure that Spanish football is partly known for: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic Club, and CA Osasuna. At these clubs, a president is elected, and they tend to be the one who rules, with Florentino Perez being the standout example. In the Bundesliga, fan control comes further into view through an elected president. 

Other leagues have had sporting directors be at the forefront of their club’s activities, for instance Luis Campos or Fabio Paratici, while in the Premier League, however, the shift of power away from the manager or head coach is a more recent development.

Beyond this, some activities are starting to see the owners themselves becoming more involved.

We can take Chelsea as an example in recent years, where Todd Boehly, who became Chairman after the club’s 2022 takeover, has been heavily involved in the football and recruitment sides of the club, so much so that he found himself Sporting Director for six months. 

Other clubs who have been built around heavy input from the owner include Brentford. In 2012, Matthew Benham gained full control of the West London club while they played in League One, and he brought with him an early commitment to data that is so commonplace in football today.

Under his stewardship, the club gained promotion to the first division where they are now a mainstay, employing a stats-heavy approach by appointing data-driven sporting directors such as Phil Giles along the way that took recruitment out of the managers, or head coach’s, hands.

Conversely, there are many sides that see little footballing involvement from the owners, placing responsibilities largely in the hands of chairmen and sporting directors.

This can come with varying input from the coach, most of which is earned over time. Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp are two examples of this structure, where they are widely considered to be typical ‘managers’ but have worked under efficient structures overseen by the likes of Txiki Begiristain and Michael Edwards.

Ultimately, there’s no single answer to who controls a Premier League club. Depending on the organisation, owners, executives, and sometimes even players can have a say in how the club is run, making the role of head coach less clear than ever before.

Article by Zakaria Anani