Who is new Arsenal Head of Football Relations Raul Sanllehi?

In recent years much has been made of and said about Arsenal’s activity in that bear-pit that is the international transfer market. Often disregarding what money they actually had available. But could the latest arrival at the Emirates be one of the most important signing the London club have made recently?

Raul Sanllehi has, by all accounts, been known to lace on a pair of boots and take to the field as a marauding left winger in fun games at Barcelona between directors, media, supporters club, celebrities and the like.

It’s fairly safe to assume that it is not his abilities in on the pitch that have persuaded Arsenal to bring him to the UK but rather his new role in effectively fronting a restructuring at the club that many feel will propel the Gunners right back into football’s elite. And that it has a political nature to it -more on that later.

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Make no mistake, Arsenal’s gain is very much Barcelona’s loss. A source at the club said on news of his departure: “He has been doing a job that few people could do for more than a decade. He is savvy, brilliant at PR, an irreplaceable loss for Barcelona. He has the agenda and the contacts.”

In football as in life two of the most important things are the experience that you have and the people that you know and Sanllehi has them both… in spades.

Much of what is happening at Arsenal is political. Rather than recruit from within, and there is plenty of talent that could be maximised and used better, this looks like an Arsenal side that has very much – Wenger apart – gone back to the drawing board. And with Wenger at the forefront of everything. Does that really mean change then? We will have to see.

Sanllehi’s arrival at the club is the most important appointment in the new broom sweeping the Emirates’ corridors of power with new chief scout Sven Mislintat joining from Borussia Dortmund and former Team Sky commercial and business affairs director, the lawyer, Huss Fahmy taken on to focus on contracts

So just who is Raul Sanllehi?

Well let’s start by saying what he doesn’t do rather than what he does. The first misconception is that he is responsible for deciding who should be bought and sold and who shouldn’t. He isn’t.

What he is however is the main negotiator when a decision has been made on those fronts and probably the very best in the business at doing it.

He worked at Nike when he was headhunted in 2003 by the then director and later President of Barcelona FC, Sandro Rossell, to work at the club to improve its merchandising share of the market. With Joan Laporta in the Presidential seat and Txiki Beguiristain as Sporting Director his power base gradually grew until he became the main negotiator on matters concerning both new and existing contracts up for renovation.

One of his first major obstacles occurred with the appointment as President of Sandro Rossell who was eager to get rid rid of all things pertaining to the previous Laporta regime – Sanllehi included – and who also felt that he hadn’t been shown the required loyalty by him as he strived for the top job.

But he survived probably in no small measure because of Rossell’s reluctance to take on the job as Barcelona’s representative on the ECA (European Clubs Asociation) which is the organisation that comprises all of Europe’s top clubs.

It gave Sanllehi the chance to take on the role and with it came a worldwide influence and a contact list of football’s movers and shakers that was second to none. From that point on his international recognition grew hugely.

Needless to say when he joins Arsenal in February he will continue his connection with the ECA and also represent and support the London club with all international and domestic governing bodies.”

The former Sporting director at Barcelona now at Manchester City, Txiki Beguiristain says of him,”He is a great negotiator, constant, methodical. Fantastic guy, I get on great with him.”

When Txiki left he did not enjoy the same relationship with new man, Andoni Zubizarreta. When it came to the signing and negotiating for players two factions were formed from within the club. On the one hand Rossell and Sanllehi, on the other Zubizarreta and Bartomeu

Ironically, however, it It was under the rule of Zubizarreta that his power really grew. As someone said, “It wasn’t his fault if no one else could do what he could. He was the fixer, the one they looked for when they needed something done.”

His contacts and connections had made him irreplaceable at the club and the amount of time he spent in Brazil and the effort expended in the convoluted, controversial, seemingly unending saga that was the signing of Neymar tells us everything we would ever want to know about his commitment to the task in hand.

He made over 20 trips to Brazil spent entire seasons in South America. Where Neymar, his family, his entourage, went so did Sanllehi. Eventually the deal was done.

Unfortunately what probably made him most renowned also probably signalled the beginning of the end of his time with Barcelona. So involved was he that when the time came that Neymar decided to move on, the perception was that he was the only one that might have persuaded him to stay. But the player decided not to stay. And Sanllehí started to think that perhaps it was time to test his abilities somewhere else.

In fact even before Neymar’s departure, as far back as February he told his colleague, Albert Soler, until recently the director of professional sports at the club, that he was beginning to feel undermined at the club and was going to leave. He felt he had lost authority and gravitas and was feeling generally uncomfortable.

But possibly Neymar’s departure was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

What is certain is that we – and in particular the tabloids – are going to have some fun with Raul who is about as interesting an individual as you ever likely to encounter.

Colleagues at Ara newspaper have mentioned his obsession with the palindromic nature of numbers and he has been rumoured to enter a car park and go up the floors, avoiding free spaces until such time as he comes across a palidromic number 505. 606, 707.

Albert Llimos writes in Ara that similarly when checking into hotels he is said to insist on a palindromic room number and it is said that will not get out of bed until his clock reads exactly a palindromic time, eg 7.07, 8.08, or 9.09. Should he miss the 10.01 ‘slot’ then it is said that his feet will not touch his bedroom floor until 11.11.

People that have worked with him will tell you that he doesn’t need much sleep but when he does choose to take forty winks he can do so practically with a flick of the fingers. He will, by all accounts, fall asleep before so much as the aeroplane he is travelling on has taken off and on one famous occasion was said to have falled asleep in the aisle of the jet that was taking the celebrating Barcelona players home from Tokyo after they had just won the World Club Championship.

Llimos speaks of his sending of whatsapp messages at four in the morning while taking his beloved dog, Wallace, for a walk. It is thought that he believes this is the best time for him to collect his thoughts as well as communicate with other countries in different time zones.

But such nuances and eccentricities should not disguise the fact that in Raul Sanllehi, Arsenal have acquired for themselves one of the sharpest, canniest, most shrewd and best football negotiator in the business. Hard and a strategist, fearless.

When it comes to negotiating he is a combination of tough and serious with a voice that commands respect but along with an entertaining and charismatic persona.

Today he will clear his desk and then set off on a two month holiday before statring work at the Emirates in February after the closing of the winter transfer window.

Perhaps the best and most concise assessment of Sanllehi comes from Andre Cury, a lawyer and Barcelona’s representative in Brazil who worked with him in the signing of Neymar. “He is unique,” he says.