With news being relayed from La Liga club Deportivo La Coruña, it appears that Leeds United fans will have to put up with Director of Football Victor Orta for the foreseeable future.
The above link confirms the appointment of Carmelo del Pozo as Deportivo’s new Sporting Director on a three-season deal. He joins the Spanish side from fellow Spaniards Levante UD, where he’d held the same position since 2016.
Leeds United fans were hoping, off the back of an approach from Deportivo, that Victor Orta would be the one to take up the position at the Spanish club. However, as Phil Hay eruditely pointed out (below), this was never going to be the case with Orta having dismissed the approach.
Lots of speculation about Leeds United sporting director Victor Orta recently – Deportivo approached him last week but Orta has turned them down. Intends to stay at Leeds. The sporting director's job at Deportivo is going to another Spaniard, Carmelo del Pozo. #lufc
— Phil Hay (@PhilHay_) April 21, 2018
Hay was, three weeks ago, bang on the money with his relaying of the fact that Orta had turned down the chance to slide back in to Spanish football, a place where he learned his trade at Sevilla under the much vaunted Monchi.
Orta came to Leeds United and Elland Road with the completion of the takeover of the Whites by Italian sports media mogul Andrea Radrizzani. He’d held a similar position to the one he walked in to at Elland Road when at Middlesbrough, with many Boro fans warning what they saw as hardly a glorious reign at the club.
Still, with the circles that he moved in prior to taking up the position at Leeds United, Orta came to the club with what some termed a ‘weapon’s grade contacts book’. It was this book and linked knowledge that is said to have overseen the Whites transfer policy last summer – which many say was a hit-and-miss affair.
For every Samu Saiz and Gianni Alioski that he helped bring to the West Yorkshire club, fans saw a Pawel Cibicki and a Jay-Roy Grot. To his credit, the Whites have had a better success with the Under-18 and Under-23 players that have been drawn to Thorp Arch from the likes of Ajax, Seville, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Putting aside those ‘successes’ though, the money and proof of the pudding is in the first team – and that’s where Leeds United fans have been most critical. Orta’s buys simply haven’t cut the mustard, many fans seeing the Spaniard as largely to blame for the downward direction that the club took last season.
However, with Deportivo’s appointment of Carmelo del Pozo, it looks like Leeds United fans will have to put their wishes that Orta is leaving the club on ice for a while.
