A German football expert has revealed how Tottenham fans should be feeling after the Lilywhites made Sebastian Kehl their top target for the sporting director role.
Reports indicate that Spurs have held talks with Sebastian Kehl over their sporting director role after the German parted ways with Borussia Dortmund.
Sky Sports Germany’s Florian Plettenberg revealed earlier this week that the German director had become Tottenham’s top target for the sporting director role.
He explained that Spurs’ plan is to partner Kehl with their existing sporting director, Johan Lange, to rebuild their squad this summer.
Expert sheds light on Sebastian Kehl’s ‘difficult years’ at Dortmund amid Tottenham links
The Athletic have now backed up every word of what Plettenberg reported regarding the Lilywhites’ pursuit of the 46-year-old director.
The outlet also spoke to German football expert Seb Stafford-Bloor on Kehl’s time at Dortmund, with the journalist explaining that the 46-year-old has mixed results at the Bundesliga club.
Stafford-Bloor said: “Kehl’s four years at Dortmund were difficult. The period marked a significant shift away from their traditional recruitment strategy, with the focus moving towards mid-career players and away from the elite, younger prospects with which the club was more often associated. They wanted to become more emotionally stable and less dependent on volatile young careers.
“The results were mixed. Dortmund came extremely close to winning the Bundesliga in 2023, losing out to Bayern Munich on the season’s final day. They also reached the Champions League final in 2024, losing 2-0 to Real Madrid at Wembley. However, there has been a lack of coaching stability, with Dortmund employing four head coaches (Marco Rose, Edin Terzic, Nuri Sahin and Niko Kovac) across Kehl’s four years, and supporters have frequently bemoaned the club’s transfer policy and a perceived loss of technical identity.
“There have been some significant recruiting misses. Dortmund came close to signing Rayan Cherki in January 2025, only to fail in a late bid. In addition, moves this season for Jobe Bellingham and Yan Couto are yet to pay off. At the same time, Kehl has moved quite well through the market: the signing of wing-back Daniel Svensson, initially on loan last season, has proven extremely smart and big money purchases of Serhou Guirassy, Felix Nmecha and Nico Schlotterbeck have all been relative successes.”
Kehl was working under difficult circumstances at Dortmund
However, Stafford-Bloor explained that the former German international was working in a difficult environment at Westfalenstadion at a time of upheaval at the club.
The journalist suggested that his exit from Dortmund following four years as the sporting director was partly political.
He added: “The wider context matters, too. Kehl was sporting director at Dortmund during a period of significant political upheaval. In 2024, Lars Ricken, formerly the club’s head of academy, was promoted into a newly created sporting CEO role, in preparation for the departure of Hans-Joachim Watzke, who had been CEO since 2006. It was a role that Kehl wanted, but which he was overlooked for.
“The resulting dynamic between him and Ricken was tricky. Externally, it was never quite clear who held ultimate authority for recruitment, and while the club always denied that there was any friction between the two, stories about the relationship were regularly published in the German media. Kehl’s departure from Dortmund, while abrupt, had long felt politically inevitable, even if no fair assessment of his role can ever be truly binary.”