- Dougie Freedman will leave Crystal Palace after eight years as sporting director
- Iain Moody is reportedly in the frame to replace the outgoing 50-year-old
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Crystal Palace sporting director Dougie Freedman has left Selhurst Park to take a role overseas, the club has confirmed.
The former Eagles manager, 50, returned to the club in 2017 as sporting director and has since helped Palace establish themselves as a lasting Premier League club.
While playing a key role in Palace’s managerial appointments, from Patrick Vieira to Roy Hodgson and eventually current boss Oliver Glasner, Freedman also oversaw the Eagles’ impressive recruitment over the past few years, luring the likes of Eberechi Eze, Marc Guehi and now-Bayern Munich star Michael Olise, to name a few.
But his spell at Selhurst Park drew to a close on Monday evening when Palace confirmed he was leaving in a short statement on social media.
Posted on X, it read: ‘The club can confirm that Sporting Director Dougie Freedman is leaving Crystal Palace to take up a role overseas.’
The identity of Freedman’s new club is not yet known, though it will mark the first time the former Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Wolves player has ventured abroad during his career in football.
Crystal Palace sporting director Dougie Freedman has left the club, it has been confirmed
Freedman will take on a new job ‘overseas’, calling an end to his eight-year spell in the role
Ex-Eagles sporting director Iain Moody is being lined up as a contender to succeed Freedman
Newcastle held advanced talks with Freedman in May last year in the hope of naming him as Dan Ashworth’s successor at St James’ Park, before the 50-year-old ultimately decided to remain at the London club.
According to the Telegraph, former Eagles sporting director Iain Moody is being lined up as a contender to succeed Freedman.
The outlet also claims that Freedman is potentially set to take a job in Saudi Arabia.
Moody’s return to Selhurst Park could be viewed as highly controversial, given the manner in which he left the club back in 2014.
Moody, who was appointed Crystal Palace sporting director in 2013, resigned under controversial circumstances after it was alleged he had sent racist, homophobic and sexist text messages to former Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay, whom he had worked with until moving to Selhurst Park.
Despite resigning, Moody continued to hold a close relationship with Steve Parish and has been pictured from time to time at Selhurst Park since his exit, watching games near the Palace chairman.
For the past decade, he has been rebuilding his reputation as managing director at Sapienza Football Consulting.
Moody opened up on his Eagles exit in an interview with Crystal Palace fanzine Five Year Plan back in 2015.
Moody resigned under controversial circumstances after it was alleged he had sent racist, homophobic and sexist text messages to former Cardiff City manager Malky Mackay(above)
Despite resigning, Moody (centre) continued to hold a close relationship with Steve Parish (right) and has been pictured from time to time at Selhurst Park since his exit to watch games
‘Good people sometimes do bad things. I’m not denying it was me, but that’s unrecognisable and it’s not a reflection of what I stand for,’ he said.
‘I’m the father of two young kids at the moment and it’s become the most important thing in my life that there is a proper framework or behaviour and expectation for them to be good people.
‘So there’s a distortion. People get distorted, then things that people do are interpreted in a distorted way.’
