FC Copenhagen – recruitment analysis

To be the most decorated club in Denmark, a lot of things have to be done right. FC Copenhagen (FCK) are leaders in football revolution since their 1992 establishment. They became one of the first clubs to feature on the stock market in 1997, they attracted current Crystal Palace coach Roy Hodgson to be their manager in 2000, and they have won 12 league titles over the last 20 years. These are just a couple of examples of a club with great leadership and a winning mentality.

However, in the last couple of years, Danish football is going through a flourishing era with great teams emerging behind FC Copenhagen. To stay on top, the staff and the players need to work even harder otherwise the likes of Midtjylland or Nordsjaelland can take over in the future. In this recruitment analysis, we focus on the last five years in FC Copenhagen in terms of transfers and recruitment process, and we are going to analyse what the future holds for the current squad.

The core

We could define FC Copenhagen with the word ‘consistency’. Not only in their steady performance but also the managerial presence itself is something unusual compared to other elite European clubs. Stale Solbakken has been leading his former team for over seven years. In his first spell from 2005 to 2011, he won five titles and he added three more since his return. The 13 season-experience can give him such an advantage in the squad building process that many coaches could only dream of.

The domestic results brought European football to the Danish capital year by year. However, fans are waiting for the real breakthrough to support their team in the Champions League again as 2016/17 was the last season when FC Copenhagen reached the group stage.

Transfer policy

In these five years, it is hard to find another club which expanded and actively used their scouting network this much. When we analyse clubs from Denmark, Norway, or Sweden, we can usually notice preference towards the Scandinavian market but in the case of FC Copenhagen, the picture is more widespread. Improving the scouting range was a bold choice but worked out well.

The transfer data also shows the clever roster-building process. The club managed to secure players close to or at the end of their contracts often. It should tell a lot that Pep Biel became the clubs most expensive signing with 5 million euros last summer. In today’s football, this amount is well within the European average transfer fee. Especially if the overall transfer balance is taken into account. Over five seasons, the board reached 27 million euros of profit, which is remarkable in the Danish Superliga.