The 38-year-old Ádám Bogdán has become the sporting director of DVSC. The 21-time capped former goalkeeper completed the sporting director programme at the PFA (Professional Footballers’ Association) Business School in England, thus, joining the Loki family with a high-level qualification. He also has ties to Debrecen as his grandfather grew up in the city, while his grandfather’s sister worked at the university here, so Ádám often visited Debrecen as a child. Welcome to Debrecen again, welcome to Loki!

During his outstanding career, Ádám Bogdán gained extensive experience in British football. At a young age, he signed his first professional contract with Vasas, before moving to England at the age of 19 to join the first-division team of Bolton Wanderers. Over the years, he played for Bolton and Crewe, he was signed by Liverpool in 2015, and later also saved the goal of Wigan and the Scottish Hibernian. In total, he made 123 league appearances in the Premier League and the Championship, in addition to featuring in numerous cup matches. After returning home, he won three league titles and a Hungarian Cup with Ferencváros. Following his retirement, he worked at the Hungarian Football Federation, where he was responsible for liaising with youth international players based abroad and their clubs. More recently, he has also worked as a professional commentator for the M4 sports channel.

– We welcome Ádám, a highly qualified professional to the Loki family – someone, who understands our club’s values, fully embraces its philosophy and possesses a modern approach to football along with international experience. He speaks English fluently, and in addition to working independently in his role as a sporting director, he will also serve as an excellent link between our English owner’s professional staff and the experts in Debrecen. Our shared goal is the structured development of DVSC Football Academy’s young players and their integration to the first team of Loki. It is an honour to have him among us, we warmly welcome him and wish him a lot of success together with us! Hajrá, Loki! – said managing director Balázs Makray about the sporting director.

Ádám Bogdán also talked about his principles and plans in his interview for dvsc.hu. – When DVSC approached me, I immediately felt that neither side could have found a more ideal situation for working together. Now, the club has an English owner and I have spent many years in that football environment. I lived essentially just ten minutes from the region where Stockport is located, spending at least 10-11 years in that area. I know and love that football culture and that football “language”. At the same time, I am naturally very familiar with the Hungarian football environment as well. As a result, this is a fusion that feels tailored for me – a meeting point of the English and Hungarian football – said the sporting director, who also went on to speak about specific plans.

— The most important thing is to keep as many of our valuable assets, our key players as possible during the transfer window, while at the same time being able to improve the quality where necessary. We are in a good position as the coaching staff and the team did an excellent job in the first half of the season. We are heading into the spring from a strong position in the league, which provides a great platform for performing well in the remaining part of the season. Many things are working well in Debrecen. The foundation of my football philosophy is work, built around developing local, homegrown young players and helping them progress into the first team, with the ultimate peak of potentially participating in international cups. This has a strong tradition in Debrecen and I see it as a wonderful challenge. That is what we want to achieve again — naturally, while recognising that there have always been, and always will be players that arrive from the “outside” and can also add value. One of the attractive factors about Debrecen was that all the foundations are already in place here and it is a functioning model, one that can be built upon and meaningfully enhanced. The club’s new owner and professional staff share this way of thinking — we see things in the same way — so there is nothing standing in the way of embarking on this journey together.

Ádám Bogdán will join the team soon in the training camp in Turkey.