Dan Ashworth: Why Man Utd have swooped for Newcastle director

There was a time in football where no self-respecting fan would know what a 'sporting director' was, or certainly what the hell they did in the darkness behind the scenes.

However, as we peek further and further behind the curtain in the modern game, sporting directors are now celebrities within their own right, and recruiting a new one is often met with greater fanfare than a £30m wonderkid signing.

Dan Ashworth is the latest sporting director to get pulses racing, with the experienced 52-year-old closing in on a switch to Manchester United.

But who is Dan Ashworth and why are Man Utd so interested in bringing him to Old Trafford?

A sporting director is a chief executive usually tasked with overseeing the management of transfers, although the job description can be drastically different from club to club. With data analysis at the forefront of modern football, the importance of the role has significantly increased in recent years.

It's a position that is quite often held by former footballers, which Ashworth technically is. However, unlike some other sporting directors, Ashworth only turned out for a handful of non-league clubs during his playing days.

After calling time on his playing career, Ashworth moved into several directorial and coaching roles at English clubs, such as Peterborough United and West Bromwich Albion. However, his big break came in 2012 when he was appointed as the Football Association's director of elite development, where he helped set up the 'England DNA' plan which was tasked with aiding player development at national team level.

A move to Brighton & Hove Albion followed seven years later where he took up residence as the club's technical director, after which he was headhunted by Newcastle