Neel Shelat analyses the work of a sporting director developing a strong track record in buying in, developing, and selling out young talent
Cercle Brugge are arguably one of the most interesting teams in Europe as far as youth development is concerned, but they hardly get the recognition they deserve. Since 2019/20, their average age weighted by minutes played has always been in the 23s, making them the youngest team across all of Europe’s major leagues in recent years.
While Cercle do have a pretty good youth academy, their heavily youth-focused recruitment is the key behind that statistic. They are a particularly interesting case study from a player trading point of view since they have always operated on an extremely tight budget, perhaps restricted by some shortcomings in terms of sales. The Groen en Zwart seem to be changing that now, and the key figure behind this shift is Technical Director Rembert Vromant.
Career Overview
Vromant is currently 38 years old, but he has already had a very interesting career so far. After studying management in Belgium, he took up the general manager role at GOLSTATS, a sports intelligence company focusing on football – predominantly in Latin America. At the same time, he also worked as a scout in Latin America for Club Brugge, who roughly signed one player per season from the region during his time there between 2008 and 2016.
Vromant’s first major role at a club saw him become Pachuca’s director of performance analysis and scouting, a position he held until 2021. In this capacity, he not only oversaw the day-to-day operations of the analysis departments at Pachuca but also developed a scouting network for the ownership group, who have other clubs in Mexico such as León, as well as sides in Argentina and Chile, under their umbrella.
He then returned to Belgium to take up a role with the Royal Belgian Football Association, starting off as a scouting coordinator for the various national teams. In 2023, he was made the head of scouting, but he only spent a few months in that position before moving on again to become Cercle Brugge’s technical director after the summer.
Cercle’s History
Founded in 1899, Cercle Brugge have quite a rich history to speak of. They were a well-respected force in the early years of Belgian football, winning their first league title in 1911. They have had quite a few ups and downs since, completing a league-cup double in 1926/27 but only going on to win two more major trophies – the league in 1930 and the cup in 1985. They spent long spells in the lower tiers in the intervening period, dropping back down before the turn of the millennium.
The Groen en Zwart quickly returned to the top-flight in 2003 and spent over a decade in the division, but found themselves battling relegation quite often and ultimately lost in 2015. Their tight financial situation coupled with growing investment among direct competitors meant they too had to search for a new owner, and they ultimately found one in Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Rybolovlev made his fortune as the chairman of Uralkali, a name that should be familiar to Formula 1 fans as the company formerly sponsored Haas F1 Team and recently made a bid to seize the team’s assets over outstanding payments. Rybolovlev was not involved in any of it, having sold his stake in the company back in 2010, subsequently moving to Monaco.
Soon thereafter, he bought a majority stake in the principality’s football club, who were then languishing in Ligue 2. He invested quite heavily in the club over the years, quickly getting them promoted to the top-flight and famously winning Ligue 1 in 2017. They had some well-known stars in their squad, but their success was and still is largely built on recruiting promising youngsters.
Rybolovlev sought to replicate this approach at Cercle, albeit at a smaller scale without having to invest too much himself. Fans were initially sceptical of this takeover as they feared their side would be no more than a farm team for Monaco, but improved on-pitch performances won them over soon enough. It should be noted that there have been 39 transfers from Monaco to Cercle since 2016/17, of which 33 have been loans, so the Belgian club certainly have played a role in this multi-club ownership arrangement.
For a couple of years after Rybolovev’s takeover, Cercle mostly restricted themselves to low-cost signings from familiar markets in Belgium and France. They made the odd move elsewhere such as signing Brazilian defender Vitinho from Cruzeiro for a club-record €2.35 million, but their transfer business only really took off after the arrival of Carlos Aviña in 2020.
Interestingly, Aviña also joined them from a Mexican club, namely América. In his very first window at the club, he made perhaps their best-ever signing to date by spending €2m on Kévin Denkey. He had only scored four goals in about 18 months for Ligue 1 side Nîmes, but his underlying numbers showed good promise as TransferLab’s time machine feature attests.
The Togolese international has now grown into one of the best strikers in Europe beyond the big five leagues at Cercle, as he has 62 goals to his name in under 150 appearances and was the subject of serious transfer interest this summer.
Under Aviña, Cercle made signings from a number of big-five league clubs, Norwegian second-tier side Start, Brazilian teams like Botafogo and Internacional, J1 league side Kashima Antlers and FC Nordsjaelland among others. In the process, they assembled a squad that took them from being relegation-battlers to making their European group stage debut earlier this season.
However, they have seemed to climb too high too quickly. While Cercle have a promising squad, they do not have the necessary depth to balance a European campaign with their domestic duties, which is why they made one of the worst starts to the league season in Belgium. Ten matches in, they found themselves second from bottom with just eight points. They have climbed up to 11th now, but only after fielding an effective B team in the Conference League.
The root of the issue is the fact that Cercle have not greatly improved their financial standing in recent years. While better league performances have brought in increased prize money, they have mostly wasted a lot of potential in terms of generating revenue from player sales. For example, in 2022, they sold Vitinho to Burnley for just €1m – eight times less than what the Clarets earned from his move to Botafogo this summer.
As a result, Cercle made an aggregate loss of around €3.5m in 2021 and 2022 combined. They have just about managed to break even in the last couple of years, thanks in no small part to increased revenue from sales.
Vromant’s Impact
In the summer of 2023, Paul Mitchell’s departure from his role as Monaco’s sporting director made a fair bit of news. Far more quietly, he was replaced by Aviña, who was in turn replaced by Vromant at Cercle. Those moves happened in August, so both of them played a part in the club’s transfer business in that window.
In early August, Cercle sold Ayase Ueda to Feyenoord for a record-smashing €8m. On the last day of the month, they parted ways with Oliver Deman who moved to Werder Bremen for half that amount in a deal likely overseen by Vromant. Subsequently, the Groen en Zwart signed a couple of interesting youngsters in the final days of the window. Teenage winger Kazeem Olaigbe was brought in from Southampton after spending the previous season out on loan, and he was soon joined by Flávio Nazinho. The Sporting CP academy graduate initially came in on loan, though that was later made permanent.
Besides Deman, Vromant has gone on to oversee two of the five most expensive departures in Cercle’s history. The next one came in his first full window at the club in January 2024, when Yann Gboho moved to Toulouse for €2.5m. Having joined the club on a free from Rennes in 2022, he provided a great example of the potential revenue Cercle could generate through player trading.
They invested a similar amount on teenage Corinthians striker Felipe Augusto, who profiles quite similarly to how Denkey did prior to his Cercle move.
Vromant struck another deal in Brazil that winter, bringing in Fluminense under-20 midfielder Erick Nunes on loan for a season and a half. Given the ages of these players, it is too early to appropriately assess whether or not these have been good moves.
Either way, Cercle made another big sale this summer as Jesper Daland’s move to Cardiff City earned them a little over €4m. Their signings remained generally low-key besides making Nazinho’s loan permanent. One of them was Ibrahim Diakité, who came in from Reims for €700,000 after a decent season on loan at Stade Lausanne-Ouchy.
Relatively experienced Belgian Pro League right back Gary Magnée left Eupen for the same fee, adding another option in that position.
The other arrivals included Alama Bayo and Dalangunypole Gomis on free transfers from Seraing and Sochaux respectively, while Lawrence Agyekum and Bruninho joined on loans with options to buy from the Red Bull clubs in Salzburg and Bragantino. Most notably, highly-rated German talent Paris Brunner was sent across on a season-long loan from Monaco. The oldest in this list of players is only 21 years old, so Vromant has clearly preserved Cercle’s youth-focused recruitment policy.
Difficult Decisions Ahead
What Cercle did this summer – making a big sale or two and reinvesting the money in numerous youngsters – is likely going to be the blueprint for them going forward. Regardless of whether they want to focus on adding squad depth or start signing more highly-rated youngsters, making good sales will be critical for their growth, so Vromant may well have to make some tough calls in upcoming windows.
The most interesting player to watch was Kévin Denkey, who has grown into a very well-rated striker. His return of 28 goals across all competitions last season led to the club setting a €20m price tag in the summer, though no sale materialised. He quickly broke into double digits this term, giving Cercle no reason to back down too much. With his current contract expiring in 2026, though, they had to make a decision on the 23-year-old striker quickly to get the best fee for him. A reportedly record-smashing €15.5m deal with FC Cincinnati could well go down as a landmark deal in the Cercle’s history.
In addition, 23-year-old defensive midfielder Abu Francis, 24-year-old defender Edgaras Utkus, club captain Thibo Somers, and goalkeeper Warleson also have under two years left on their current contracts, and they all should fetch a few million each if sold appropriately. Marketing them will be no issue given Cercle’s participation in Europe, so if Vromant continues to sell as well as he has done in the last couple of windows, he will not be short of funds to invest in new signings.
Consistently qualifying for Europe will undoubtedly be a challenge for a club whose player payroll has been among the bottom four in the league in three of the last four seasons, but it is not entirely impossible. While Belgium currently have a fairly established top six of Club Brugge, Anderlecht, Royal Antwerp, Union Saint-Gilloise, Genk and Gent, at least a couple of them seem to be off the pace every year. At the time of writing, for example, Cercle are only four points off sixth-placed Gent despite being down in 11th, so this season cannot be written off just yet. Most usefully, the European playoff pathway in the league’s split format means they will almost always be in the hunt for a spot in the last few months of a season as long as they perform better than the relegation-battlers.
Besides smart player recruitment, the most important factor in overachieving relative to budget is having a great head coach. Cercle currently have one in Miron Muslic, but he obviously will not stick around forever. His job was reportedly under threat earlier this year after the shambolic start to the league season, but the trouble is that he will be picked up by a bigger club if he keeps doing very well too. His contract expires at the end of the season, so Vromant may soon have to get on the tough task of shortlisting some replacements.
The technical director’s work will be cut out if he wishes to find someone who can implement a similarly intense and direct style of play that has troubled many a stronger side, but a shift in approach would also come with other associated risks.
Vromant has never had to make a coaching hire in any of his previous roles, but his first such decision will likely be a big one in determining whether Cercle Brugge’s European qualification was a one-off or the start of a memorable period in the club’s history.
Header image copyright: IMAGO / Photo News / Tomas Sisk
