Damien Comolli Profile

Damien Comolli (born 1972) is the Director of Football Strategy with Liverpool. He is French and has previously worked as a football coach and scout, with AS Monaco, AS Saint-Étienne, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. He speaks fluent English, Spanish and French.

He was born in Béziers, France, and played as a youth team player at AS Monaco. In 1992, he began a successful three-year coaching job with Monaco, where he looked after the club's Under-16 squads and won the state championship at that level. Comolli completed a law degree in 1995 and gained his French coaching licence.

In 1996 he joined Arsenal and spent seven seasons as a European scout and is credited with the discovery of several of Arsenal's players such as Kolo Touré, Emmanuel Eboué and Gaël Clichy. Between 2004 and 2005 he was technical director of AS Saint-Étienne.The club went through a successful period, finishing sixth in the league and reaching the semi-finals of the Coupe de France. During his time there he also oversaw a number of important first team signings and developed partnerships with junior and amateur clubs, locally, nationally and internationally.

In 2005 he became director of football at Tottenham Hotspur, with overall responsibility for the medical, academy, scouting and club secretarial departments, replacing the outgoing Frank Arnesen. During his time there he had several disagreements with coach Martin Jol, who after his departure from Spurs complained several players had been signed by Comolli without his agreement. He spent three years in the job but with Tottenham performing poorly in 2008-09 and some of Comolli's signings coming in for criticism,he was dismissed in October 2008, along with manager Juande Ramos, assistant Gus Poyet and first team coach Marcos Álvarez‎. During his time at Tottenham, Comolli was responsible for Tottenham's policy of signing some of the world's brightest young talents, bringing young players such as Gareth Bale, Alan Hutton, Kevin-Prince Boateng, Giovanni dos Santos, Adel Taarabt and Younes Kaboul to the club.

On 9th November 2008, it was announced that he would return to Saint-Étienne as sporting director.His appointment led to the departure of manager Laurent Roussey.

On 3rd November 2010 his appointment as Director of Football Strategy at Liverpool FC was announced, with part of his remit being to oversee the recruitment of new players to the club.

From Wikipedia