Tottenham Hotspur Football Club
Operations Manager - Global Football Development
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Who We Are
Founded in 1882, Tottenham Hotspur is an iconic English football club, playing in the Premier League and Women’s Super League. From North London to the world, our fanbase spans continents, cultures, and generations. Spurs is a club that’s always dared to push boundaries, breaking new ground and rewriting history.
We are at our brightest when we’re all together. Our club, our teams, our community. We are entering a new era at Tottenham with a new club strategy, new leadership, and a focus on putting our fans at the heart of everything we do as we continue to strengthen our connection with our DNA, our home, and each other.
We’re at our brightest when we’re all together. Our Club, our teams, our community.
Role Purpose
To lead the operational planning, governance and compliance of Global Football Development (GFD), ensuring all programmes are effectively resourced, appropriately resourced and delivered through robust operational systems, financial controls and governance frameworks.
The role is responsible for operational excellence across domestic and international activity and provides leadership of Football Operations, ensuring the planning, scheduling, deployment, and operational support of the coaching workforce, alongside the oversight of governance, compliance and continuous improvement across the department.
Key Accountabilities
- Department operational strategy and performance
- Operational planning and programme delivery
- Workforce planning, programme scheduling and coaching resource allocation
- Governance, compliance and safeguarding
- Operational finance
- Risk management and business planning
- Leadership of Football Operations and oversight of Coach Operations
- Line management of the Football Operations Coordinator
Key Responsibilities
Strategy
- Develop and implement the department’s operational plan aligned with wider GFD strategy
- Support long-term sustainability of GFD and effectiveness of department operations
- Lead the review and continuous improvement of department policies, procedures and governance frameworks
- Advise department managers on operational best practice, compliance and risk management
- Support the GFD Safeguarding Manager in developing and implementing a global safeguarding framework that sets the standard for best practice and partner accountability across all GFD programmes
Operational Planning & Delivery
- Lead annual operational planning across all GFD programmes to ensure consistent, world class delivery
- Own the planning, coordination and maintenance of the department’s delivery schedule across all domestic and international programmes
- Lead the allocation and movement of coaches across programmes, ensuring workforce resources are utilised effectively and operational priorities are met
- Communicate programme schedule changes and coach deployment updates to internal stakeholders, coaches and external partners where appropriate
- Work collaboratively with Programme Managers to balance staffing requirements, resolve scheduling conflicts and ensure appropriate programme cover
- Provide leadership of coaching operations, including coach deployment, scheduling oversight and operational support until a dedicated resource is established
- Drive operational excellence and continuous improvement across all programmes
- Own the annual operations calendar across all GFD programmes, ensuring workforce capacity, operational readiness, and budget alignment
- Lead the operational quality assurance framework, ensuring governance, compliance and operational standards are consistently applied across domestic and international delivery
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Governance, Compliance & Risk
- Act as the primary operational liaison with the Club’s Legal team to ensure departmental processes, programmes and documentation remain compliant with relevant legislation and Club requirements.
- Lead departmental governance, safeguarding and compliance processes
- Maintain policies, procedures and operational quality standards
- Lead operational business planning and ensure appropriate contingency plans in place to minimise operational disruption
Finance, Systems & Continuous Improvement
- Oversee finance processes including, payroll oversight, purchase orders, invoicing and procurement
- Lead operational reporting, KPI dashboards and management information to support strategic decision making
- Drive improvements to CRM, booking platforms, scheduling systems and operational processes.
- Lead the implementation and ongoing development of department operational systems, technology and digital processes
Working Together
- Collaborate with colleagues across the Club to ensure operational, governance and compliance requirements are met, supporting the effective delivery of all Global Football Development programmes
- Work closely with HR on all areas of employee relations including, but not limited to, performance management, absence management, policy, procedure, T&Cs, disciplinary and grievance issues, conduct, capability, etc
- Build effective relationships with Finance, HR, Legal, Safeguarding, Facilities and other departments to ensure operational excellence across Global Football Development
- Support the Player & Coach Pathway Coordinator and the GFD Coach Developer with tracking talent pathway and coach development (including coach excellence centre) statistics
People Leadership
- Line manage the Football Operations Coordinator
- Lead the operational elements of recruitment, onboarding and induction, working collaboratively with hiring managers and HR
- Develop a high-performing operational culture built on accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement
Safeguarding
- Monitor and ensure compliance with all relevant legislation and regulation including Safeguarding legislation and statutory guidance, PL licensing requirements, and FA Safeguarding standards
- Alongside the Head of Safeguarding & Welfare and Department Safeguarding Manager, manage all aspects of risk from a safeguarding perspective for all GFD programmes incl. risk assessments and mitigating risks within programmes
- To ensure that safeguarding requirements, understanding, and learning are embedded within the GFD’s ways of working, activities and behaviours of all staff and CDP students
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General
- Understand and comply with all relevant Club policies
- Understand and comply with the Club’s health and safety procedures
- Adhere to the Global Football Development Coaching Code of Conduct
- Promote, adhere to, and implement the Club’s Equality & Diversity Policy
- Attend all Global Football Development in-service training events as required
- Undertake any other duties as may reasonably be expected
Personal Attributes
- Values & respects others, builds relationships, collaborates, and works well within a team environment
- Generate innovative ideas and strive to deliver the highest standard of service as possible
- Alert – attentive and observant, able to make decisions quickly and adapting to situations
- Proactive – think ahead rather than simply reacting in the moment, particularly when travelling to culturally different international markets
- Able to work independently, showing initiative, taking responsibility, and thinking logically
- Reliable – be able to commit to scheduled programmes and to be punctual
- Passionate - taking great pride and enthusiasm in your work
- Fantastic personal skills – good communicator: friendly, approachable, positive attitude
Skills & Experience
- Sports or Business Management Degree
- Demonstrable experience working in a sports operations / administration environment
- Football / Sport development and/or coaching background
- Experience of supporting the development of policy and best practice, with demonstrable knowledge of safeguarding matters, legislation, statutory and other guidance related to the best outcomes for children and adults at risk
- Excellent attention to detail
- Demonstrated project management skills
- Excellent Word, Excel & PowerPoint skills
- Strong Communication skills and ability to build relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders
- Health & Safety Qualification (or willingness to undertake)
Safeguarding & Recruitment Statement
Safeguarding is fundamental to the success in all that we do. The Club follows a Safer Recruitment process for all roles. Successful candidates are to be reminded they would be subject to proportionate background, DBS and reference checks as required.
We welcome applications from anyone regardless of age, disability, gender, race, or ethnic and national origins, religion or belief, or sexual orientation.
Reasonable Adjustments
We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process and will make reasonable adjustments at any stage of the application or interview process to support candidates with disabilities or specific needs. Please let us know if you require any adjustments so that we can ensure you have a fair and positive experience.
Please note that we reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive a high volume of applications or due to business needs, so early applications are encouraged.
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