Former Melbourne Victory mastermind Gary Cole has vowed to bring stability to Sydney FC after accepting the newly created role of football director with the Sky Blues.
Cole, who earned 19 caps for the Socceroos as a player, helped Ernie Merrick build Victory from the ground up before parting company with the club at the end of last season.
His responsibilities will include overseeing recruitment and retention, high performance, health science, player welfare and football operations.
“I think it’s fair to say (the club) has not had a stable foundation, I think (Vitezslav Lavicka) is the sixth coach and I think Dirk (Melton) is the sixth or seventh CEO, but the club wants to become stable,” Cole said at the SFS on Tuesday morning.
“One of the things that really appeals to me is that Sydney clearly are trying to change.”
“They’re very clear on the job they want me to do and the exciting thing for me is it’s not too dissimilar to the one I’m used to, so the systems and plans that they want put in place – I’ve been there and done that.”
But the 55-year-old, who expects to start his new role on January 2, insists he won’t ‘tamper’ too much initially and says he has no desire to take over from coach Lavicka.
“I’m not here to coach the team, let’s make that clear. I’m not here to tell Vitezslav how the team should play,” he said.
“I’ve got no expectation that because I’m here Vitezslav should change what he’s doing.”
“If he did that he wouldn’t believe in what he does. I did have a chance briefly to meet him and the coaches the other day and they have a clear plan of what they want to do and what they’re looking to achieve.”
“What I do know is it’s clear he’d love more consistency and if I can help him get the players deliver more consistency that’ll be a good thing.”
“I’m looking forward to working with him, he’s a very, very good coach.”
“I see my job, as I did with Ernie Merrick, is to make his life as easy as possible.”
“If he has to spend less time worrying about the board and the administration then he can spend more time worrying about the team’s performance.”
Cole added when asked his top priorities when he takes up his new post in 2012:
“I’ve got a lot of catching up to do’ but recruitment and retention is a big focus.
“We’ve got seven players (Bruno Cazarine, Juho Makela, Karol Kisel, Pascal Bosschaart, Michael Beauchamp, Scott Jamieson and Shannon Cole) coming out of contract which is key and they’re a target.”
” … and there are some young players around the country that excite me and whether we can make them fit inside our salary cap or whether they want to move, who knows?”
“That’s going to happen over the next few weeks but I’ve already had some texts this morning and surprisingly a number of those texts are from player agents.”
