Crystal Palace Shock Their Fans After Appointing Dougie Freedman as Club's New Sporting Director

Crystal Palace have announced, via their official website, the appointment of club legend and former public enemy number one Dougie Freedman as the club's new sporting director.

Eagles Chairman, Steve Parish, has been quick to praise the new man and voice his delight at filling the position:

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"This is a position I have been looking to fill for a while, someone to work with the manager, myself and Head of Recruitment, Tim Coe on all the footballing aspects of the club," claimed Parish

"I’m delighted that Dougie has agreed to accept the position and look forward to continuing Crystal Palace’s progression to become a solid Premier League club with the right infrastructure.”

The Eagles have reportedly been searching for a new football executive to take charge of transfers and the general sporting direction of the club for some time. 

Before choosing Freedman, Parish and the board are said to have discreetly interviewed a number of candidates to fill the void left by previous director Iain Moody.

Freedman was a former Palace striker and scored 64 goals in 237 appearances for the club over eight years in the team.

After retiring from a distinguished playing career in 2010, particularly for the Eagles, Freedman turned to management and has since had multiple manager and assistant manager roles, including a stint as Palace caretaker manager in 2011.

However, the ex-Scotland international has been out of work since leaving Nottingham Forest and had to patch up his relationship with chairman Steve Parish to get the new job, after he walked out of the club to take over at Bolton Wanderers in 2012.

Manager Frank de Boer was also pleased with the appointment, claiming that he likes to work with a Sporting Director in order to bring success to his teams:

“I always worked with a Sporting Director during my time as manager at Ajax and I felt this was a position the club needed, I am looking forward to working with Dougie in this transfer window and beyond.”