- Newcastle United to appoint Wesley Awad in youth recruitment role
- Awad brought in to continue progress
- Seven new scouts to join him at the club
Newcastle United are set to appoint Wesley Awad as Head of Youth Recruitment. The appointment is in line with the club’s shift toward placing a greater focus on academy recruitment.
Awad has previously worked at England, Crystal Palace and Birmingham City in scouting and recruitment roles and is now being trusted with the Magpies job ahead of a big summer for the club.
Newcastle are set to put their plans into action this summer with some top-level youth recruiting and a view to securing academy talent that can challenge the first team in coming years.
Awad to continue academy development
Newcastle United have made a significant investment in the academy since PIF took over and that is showing no signs of slowing down with the appointment of Awad.
The club is also set to support Awad’s search for top talent with seven new scouts that will be deployed across Europe.
Awad will be tasked with the continuation of academy progression, which is already seeing the rewards of the investment. The younger age groups at the club are already beginning to win competitions, and the future is looking bright.
The most prominent of which at this point is the U15s, who have won three competitions since the turn of the year and are quickly developing into one of the top academy sides in the country, if not the world.
Newcastle have made a habit in recent years of signing the best academy talent from other English clubs, with the likes of Blackburn Rovers and West Brom having their talent poached already.
Whilst Awad will oversee the continuation of those signings, there is also an expectation that he will identify some of the top foreign talent to bolster the ranks.
Newcastle focus on talent pathway
Newcastle United chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan has made clear internally his fondness of player pathways and bringing academy talent into the first team.
The club have already seen what can happen when those pathways are created, namely with the emergence of Lewis Miley as one of the Premier League’s top talents.
There are currently other players knocking on the door of regular first-team involvement too, with Sean Neave, Leo Shahar and the likes of Rory Finneran, who recently received his international debut for Ireland, all seen as big prospects going forward.
The club’s first team recruitment is also taking shape of a younger core, with one of the big aims for this summer being to reduce the average age of the first team squad and sign some of the top talent still uncovered by the elite.
