Fabio Paratici resigns as Tottenham Managing Director of Football

The Don Fabio era at Tottenham Hotspur is over. One day after Fabio Paratici lost his appeal with the Italian Olympic Commission over his 28 month ban from world football for his role in the Juventus PRISMA and plusvalenza financial scandals, Tottenham released a statement that he has resigned his position as Managing Director of Football.

Yesterday - 20 April 2023 - Fabio Paratici was unsuccessful with an appeal against his Italian Football Federation (FIGC) ban on certain football related activities.

FIFA ruled to extend the ban worldwide and, whilst there continues to be a dispute as to the scope and extent of the ban, the current worldwide ban prevents Fabio from fulfilling his duties as our Managing Director of Football. Fabio has consequently taken the decision to resign from his position at the Club with immediate effect to focus on his legal position in respect of the FIGC and FIFA rulings.

Daniel Levy, Chairman: “This has been a stressful time for Fabio and his family. We wanted to ensure that we allowed for due process to be followed. Fabio is a man who lives and breathes football - we wish him well.

“As outlined in our year end results, we started several months ago to restructure our football operations and last week announced the appointment of Scott Munn as Chief Football Officer to head up all the departments. We shall continue to strengthen our football functions over the coming months.”

— Statement, Tottenham Hotspur

There are some mildly amusing wordings in this statement — “certain football related activities” being chief among them — but it is the right decision. Paratici resigning means that Spurs do not have to technically sack him, though I’m sure there are some financial consequences from this decision being made “voluntarily.” Daniel Levy talking about this being a “stressful time for Fabio and his family” is also mildly amusing — I’m sure it is! I bet it would’ve been a lot less stressful if he had not committed financial crimes at Juventus.

All eyes now turn to who could potentially be Paratici’s successor, if there is one. Scott Munn technically doesn’t start work until June, but if Spurs want to appoint a new DoF they’ll need to act sooner than that, and I’d guess Munn would want to have some input even if he’s technically on “gardening leave” from City Football Group.

Dan Kilpatrick, meanwhile, writes in the Evening Standard that Spurs are expected to hire an external candidate and not promote Gretar Steinsson or another staffer to the more elevated role of Director of Football. Steinsson is assumed to be handling some of Paratici’s duties in the meantime, while Levy conducts the manager search.

The Athletic (£) did a deep dive into Paratici’s troubles a while ago, and it sounds as though Levy was thoroughly warned against the appointment of Paratici, as the allegations against him had started before he was hired. It was implied that Levy either did not do his due diligence over Paratici or ignored warnings before hiring him.

The last time we publicly saw Paratici in his official role at Spurs, it was via a weirdly edited video recorded on a laptop from an Italian hotel room where he tried — unsuccessfully — to provide optimism for the future after the sacking of Antonio Conte. Now he himself is gone, and Tottenham is left with no head coach, no director of football, and what appears to be very little current direction. Hopefully, with the hiring of Scott Munn, that will turn around. But this is the end of a hugely embarrassing time in the club’s history. Let’s hope Spurs have learned something from it.