The most recent appointments made by Leeds United have purposely flown under the radar, limited to low-key announcements or sometimes none at all.
Morrie Eisenberg was named as chief operating officer last month via a brief note on Leeds’ website. Confirmation of Robbie Evans as their new chief strategy officer came when his name was slipped onto the who’s-who page in the club’s matchday programme. United renewed Nick Hammond’s contract as transfer consultant last week, minus any fanfare or official statement. All were senior roles, awarded without fuss.
But from the perspective of Leeds’ owner, 49er Enterprises, the appointments are highly strategic: Hammond’s from a player recruitment point of view and Eisenberg’s and Evans’ in the sense of placing trusted administrators in the corridors of Elland Road. Neither Eisenberg nor Evans are new to the 49ers’ stable. Both worked for the NFL franchise earlier in their careers and were earmarked for their new jobs before the takeover of Leeds in July. Re-employing them is a step towards forming a staffing structure in which United no longer operate with shoestring numbers, creating positions that did not exist at Elland Road before.
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Leeds are one of England’s bigger clubs, albeit stuck in the Championship again, but of the many things 49ers Enterprises planned to improve or upgrade when the group took full control of United, the depth of its managerial hierarchy was one. Despite three consecutive seasons in the Premier League, Leeds operated with fewer senior employees than the typical top-flight team. Their front-office team, to coin a US phrase, was incomparable to the staffing structures NFL outfits, for example, tend to carry. Had Leeds avoided relegation last season, the 49ers would still have felt that they were acquiring a club with a Championship set-up, some way behind the times.
The fund’s buy-out of former owner Andrea Radrizzani was completed in the last week of September, at which point 49ers Enterprises was able to start making more wholesale changes internally. The group had, in effect, been running Leeds since its takeover deal with Radrizzani received EFL approval in July, allowing for some reorganisation of the hierarchy. But it was only two months ago that final payments and the resolution of formalities saw ownership transfer officially. By then, Eisenberg and Evans were already being sounded out about joining the project. Eisenberg had been seen at Elland Road previously during sporadic trips to England with Paraag Marathe, Leeds’ new chairman and the face of the 49ers’ group, and was regarded as a close confidant of Marathe’s, someone who had his ear.
Marathe’s appointment as United chairman did not free him of major commitments with the San Francisco 49ers and, as a result, he has continued to base himself in the U.S. Eisenberg and Evans, both of whom have young families, were prepared to relocate to Yorkshire full-time and made the move prior to taking up their new jobs. While the pair are former employees of the 49ers, neither had large public profiles in San Francisco where the attention of the 49ers’ supporter base tended to focus on more prominent figures such as Marathe and the coaching staff. In Leeds, they are likely to maintain similarly low profiles.
From left: Marathe, Victor Orta, CEO Angus Kinnear and Paul Bell in May 2022 (Alex Dodd – Getty Images)
Below Marathe, Angus Kinnear continues to hold the most senior day-to-day position of chief executive at United, retained from the Radrizzani era. There have, however, been certain exits, like the departure of long-standing executive director Paul Bell last month. Bell headed up Leeds’ commercial strategy and, with the exception of a period between 2014 and 2016 when he linked up with Sheffield Wednesday, had been with the club since 2010. The 49ers aimed to revamp and expand Leeds’ commercial model and negotiated Bell’s departure within a few weeks of the takeover’s completion. Eisenberg, as chief operating officer, is now overseeing that side of the club with responsibility for “leadership of the club’s commercial revenue and business operations”.
Eisenberg’s arrival has not, to this point, led to vast or sweeping changes of personnel but there is no doubt that he has the trust of senior 49ers figures, someone who, along with Kinnear, can provide oversight of the club’s inner workings. Described as forthright but personable, he has the notable inclusion on his CV of working for Elon Musk’s Tesla electric car empire but more relevant to Leeds and the 49ers is the fact that for three years, he ran the NFL franchise’s business operations, a period which overlapped with the opening of the 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
His remit covered the construction of that arena and it was not surprising that in their short press release about him, Leeds said that Eisenberg would “lead longer-term strategic initiatives, including the initial stages of our stadium redevelopment plans.” United have a long-held ambition to increase the capacity of Elland Road from 36,000 to beyond 50,000, an ambition which was much touted but never realised on Radrizzani’s watch.
When 49ers Enterprises lined up its takeover in the summer, it was suggested that the fund might be in a position to unveil more concrete plans before the end of this year. Leeds are known to have spoken with at least one major architectural firm about redeveloping their ground. A larger, more modern home is seen as the most crucial way of giving United greater commercial strength; the key to pushing up the worth of a club that, at one stage, had a valuation of close to £500million ($630m) in the Premier League.
As chief strategy officer, Evans’ new role is expected to be more wide-reaching, with commercial duties tied in but combined with a focus on the club’s playing side. He has a background in analytics, most recently employed by U.S. genetic testing firm Invitae, and he will look to help the 49ers significantly expand the use of data at Leeds in recruitment, matchday performance and medical treatment. Analysis is another area where the owners believe Leeds are lagging behind. Similar to Eisenberg, Evans is well-known to the 49ers, having operated as a strategic manager for the franchise over 10 years ago, again with involvement in the Levi’s Stadium project. That role also crossed into sporting operations for the 49ers. According to Evans’ resume, he was part of the process of appointing Jim Harbaugh as the 49ers’ head coach in 2012.
At a senior level, he is another pair of eyes, ears and hands. And with Hammond agreeing to remain in his role as a transfer consultant — in a department which includes technical director Gretar Steinsson — Leeds now think they have something closer to a modern structure on that front, with responsibilities shared and duties more divided. For all the criticism of former director of football Victor Orta, the club accept that they were under-resourced on the recruitment front during Orta’s time, with insufficient numbers of staff to manage the countless requirements of a major football club. Hammond was influential in closing deals over the summer and Leeds were discussing the option of extending his contract for the next two transfer windows several weeks before September’s deadline had passed.
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Up until that point, the priority for 49ers Enterprises was taking care of its first season as owner — the Championship campaign which Leeds are almost halfway through. But from September onwards, and once Radrizzani formally exited the boardroom, thoughts were able to turn to bringing the club up to speed behind the scenes by creating and filling posts that are not only commonplace in U.S. sport but across the Premier League too. After several years as a minority partner at Elland Road, 49ers Enterprises has its hand on the wheel and is getting its men on the ground.
(Photo: Richard Sellers/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
