Before Arsenal flew to Milan for their match against Inter last night, there was time for an emotional goodbye at the training ground. On his final day as the club’s first sporting director, players and staff gathered to bid farewell to Edu.
For supporters, the departure of the former ‘Invincible’ came out of left field. For those at the top of the Arsenal hierarchy though, Edu’s decision was not a total surprise.
His reputation in football has grown considerably during his five years at Arsenal. This is not the first time he has fielded interest from elsewhere wishing to prise him away. With manager Mikel Arteta’s future secured, the club knew they would have to attend to Edu next. Not until very recently did they realise how challenging that would be.
Arsenal were aware of Edu’s ambition to work in a role with true international scope and had held discussions regarding his future in the weeks preceding the news of his departure — but there was always a hope he would stay.
For the wider staff — including players and several of Edu’s recruitment team — it came as a shock. Many of them first heard of Edu’s departure via the media.
The 46-year-old had taken a fortnight’s leave to attend to a personal matter back home in Brazil. As his absence continued, rumours spread among staff, but his reappearance at Arsenal’s away game against Newcastle United last Saturday was assumed to be a return to normal service.
Not so.
Just over 48 hours later, Arsenal were drafting an internal email to inform staff that Edu was moving on. Shortly afterwards, they released a public statement announcing his resignation. “This was an incredibly hard decision,” said the Brazilian. “It is time to pursue a different challenge. Arsenal will always remain in my heart. I wish the club and its supporters only good things.”
Edu will now serve a six-month notice period, effectively on gardening leave, before taking up a role working with the group of clubs controlled by Evangelos Marinakis — Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, Olympiacos of Greece and Portugal’s Rio Ave — and perhaps even assist in expanding that stable. The deal is not yet fully done, but there is an expectation on all sides that an agreement will be reached.
Arsenal must look to the future, and begin a recruitment process to replace him. “Change and evolution is a part of our club,” said their co-chair Josh Kroenke. “We remain focused on our strategy and winning major trophies. Our succession plan will reflect this continued ambition.”
The club are committed to hiring a new sporting director to work alongside Arteta — although the exact remit of the role is yet to be defined. When Edu was promoted from technical director to sporting director in November 2022, he assumed responsibility for Arsenal’s women’s team and their academy. The club are now considering a return to the former setup, with the incoming sporting director focused primarily on the men’s first team.
Edu, right, was a prominent figure, along with Tim Lewis, left, when Arteta’s new contract was announced in September (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
While the timing of Edu’s departure has felt sudden, Marinakis has been courting him for some time. The two men are good friends. They have collaborated on transfers, including the deals that took Matt Turner and Nuno Tavares from Arsenal to Forest in 2023. With Arsenal looking to sell players this summer, high-level discussions were held with Forest over Eddie Nketiah and Aaron Ramsdale.
Edu flew back to Europe ahead of Arsenal’s main travelling party from their summer U.S. tour and was a guest at Marinakis’ birthday party. When the Olympiacos owner held a celebratory meal before they played in (and won) last season’s Europa Conference League final, Edu was one of the invitees — as was their mutual friend, agent Kia Joorabchian.
Forest have been without a chief executive since Dane Murphy left almost two years ago.
Marinakis has been looking for someone with a wider remit — a CEO figure with football credentials, an international reputation and business acumen — to lead his growing network. For Edu, that kind of role has long held an appeal. Before he was a sporting director, he was a businessman: his first enterprise at the end of his playing career was a flooring company in Brazil.
Edu is settled in London, and his international role should allow him to still be based there. The new position may offer other lifestyle benefits: less direct involvement in day-to-day minutiae, more remote supervision and delegatory responsibility. He can also expect a significant pay rise. Typically, sporting directors earn considerably less than their manager counterparts. The scale of Edu’s new job will see his salary brought into line with the sums earned by top Premier League managers/head coaches.
After these five years at Arsenal — during which he was named best European director at the 2023 Golden Boy awards — Edu may have reasoned his stock was high, and that this was the time to capitalise on the goodwill and reputation he has built. The timing may also be designed to ensure he is available to take up his new role before the start of next year’s summer transfer window. As stated, Edu’s new role has not been finalised but informal discussions over potential transfer plans have already taken place.
Sources familiar with both Arsenal and Forest, who have asked to remain unnamed to protect relationships, have expressed a word of warning: Edu is departing a stable environment for one which is considerably more chaotic. His diplomatic skills are likely to be tested.
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Having grown frustrated with some of the limitations of his role at Arsenal, Edu is expected to have more signatory powers at Forest — in part due to his close relationship with the owner. Those who know him believe he is seeking more autonomy. At Arsenal, there is now considerable oversight and due process on all matters related to transfers. Having to seek board approval on transfer activity can mean, however, that certain deals become protracted. Edu agreed a move for Bologna defender Riccardo Calafiori, but the Arsenal board were only prepared to sanction it if a major sale balanced the books. In the end, the club only pushed ahead on Calafiori in July when Real Madrid emerged as a potential rival bidder.
Edu and Arteta have always enjoyed an excellent personal relationship but, in recent windows, members of Arsenal’s coaching staff have exerted an increasing influence over first-team recruitment. That came to a head late this summer, when the club found themselves embroiled in a convoluted deal for Joan Garcia, a goalkeeper at Espanyol in Spain’s La Liga. In the final 48 hours of the window, an exasperated Edu had to extricate Arsenal from that negotiation and pivot to signing Bournemouth’s Neto on loan.
Arteta and Edu have driven Arsenal’s progress over the past five years (Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images)
In his proposed role with Mariankis’ group, Edu would take a role where he is likely to have regular, direct contact with the owner. He would possess greater authority.
Arsenal feel they are well-equipped to deal with his departure, but the timing of it is not ideal. Their revival in recent years has been based on a team of like-minded individuals working in harmony. In the summer, chief executive Vinai Venkatesham stepped aside to be replaced by Richard Garlick, taking on a new role as managing director. For the leadership team to lose a CEO and their sporting director in the space of a few months is challenging.
It also comes in the middle of a season, two months before the start of a transfer window.
Next week, Arsenal’s football leadership team — led by Arteta, Garlick and vice-chair Tim Lewis — will meet with the owners, the Kroenkes, to outline squad-building plans for 2025. Edu would have been a key part of those discussions. Instead, Jason Ayto is likely to represent the recruitment department. Ayto began at Arsenal as a video analyst and worked his way up to become Edu’s right-hand man. Last year, a reshaping of the recruitment team led to Ayto being named assistant sporting director, with James Ellis becoming head of recruitment.
That recruitment department is part of the legacy Edu leaves behind him. One of his first major decisions was to overhaul the previous scouting network, building a new team to his specifications. That core team remain in place.
After Garlick moved from his role as director of football operations, Ayto played a significant part in the most recent transfer window, supporting Edu in negotiations. He is a fluent Portuguese speaker and well-regarded in European football circles. He will step up on an interim basis as Arsenal search for a new sporting director. Ayto has already had some involvement in the club’s search for a new women’s team manager, where he is assisting women’s director of football Clare Wheatley.
Ayto will be supported by James King, who joins from the Professional Footballers’ Association to replace Garlick as director of football operations. King takes up his position from Monday.
The first task for Arsenal’s football leadership team, in conjunction with the Kroenkes, will be to identify what sort of sporting director they want to replace Edu. Do they want an executive, or someone with a technical background?
Arteta will play a role in those discussions, which is surprising to some: conventionally, the sporting director sits above the manager in a club’s hierarchy. Arsenal, though, consider the roles to operate on the same level. The relationship between manager and sporting director is of critical importance. Edu and Arteta had great professional chemistry, and Arsenal will seek the latter’s input to find a similarly positive working relationship. They are not going to be hiring a boss for Arteta, but a partner.
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As Edu’s six-month notice period indicates, this process could take some time.
Sporting directors are rarely available to move freely between clubs during the season. There is little consistency across Europe regarding how these specialists are retained: some are on fixed-length contracts, others are permanent employees. Extracting whoever they decide is the right person might be protracted, or expensive.
However, the Kroenkes’ recent record of hiring executive-level talent is good. They have substantial experience across their global stable of sporting franchises. They were the ones who brought Edu back to the club and will be confident they can procure a suitable replacement. A previous affiliation with Arsenal is not a necessity, and the club are prepared to search domestically and internationally for the right candidate.
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Arsenal are grateful for the work Edu has done — he has helped transform the club — but the reality is that when you have successful staff, they will attract interest from elsewhere.
Arteta will feel Edu’s loss — they held daily conversations at the club’s London Colney training ground, and he was a valuable sounding board and confidante.
Nevertheless, the Spaniard is, typically, focused on looking forward.
“The vision, which starts with the owners, is very clear and very ambitious. It is going to continue,” Arteta said in Milan this week. “We have a strong leadership team with unbelievable know-how, a real passion and great feelings for the football club that we’re not going to stop where we are.
“Then across the club, the excitement, the passion, the understanding of where we want to take this journey, remains intact. That means opportunities as well for somebody else to come and fulfil their role.
“We move on. We say thank you and we have to move on, because that’s the reality of our industry.”
Additional contributors: Daniel Taylor and Mario Cortegana
(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)
