Leeds United director of football Victor Orta says coronavirus lockdown is not the time to cut scouting department

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Speaking on a SciSports webinar this afternoon, Orta insisted a football club's scouting department was essential for helping to generate income and solutions to problems presented by football's shutdown.

The lockdown has cost Leeds around £2.5m, according to owner Andrea Radrizzani, in lost revenue from the five home games that have not been able to go ahead.

Leeds United's players, coaching staff and senior management team, including Orta, took a wage deferral for the forseeable future in a gesture the Whites said would safeguard the employment of hundreds of members of staff.

It was reported on April 1 that Premier League outfit Newcastle United had closed their player recruitment operations by furloughing staff in response to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Leeds United's scouting department employs three senior scouts, seven part-time scouts and a head of recruitment in England, with another two heads of recruitment and three senior scouts in Europe.

READ: Victor Orta on 8,000 scouting reports, Jean-Kevin Augustin and Eddie Nketiah Orta believes that stopping the work of that department is counter productive.

"I heard that a team in England furloughed the people for the scouting department," he said.

"It sounds like I am talking about myself, but I believe this - in this moment, when you need creativity, new resources to sign players, a new era, the department that perhaps need more investment at this moment is the recruitment department.

"The marketing department always has a ceiling, you can have the best workers in marketing but you have a ceiling, in the other departments you always have a limit to generate resources for your club. In the football department you can buy a player for £1m and sell for £15 in one year.

"If any CEO thinks that the way to pass this crisis period is to cut the scouting department, for me it is the opposite.

"Invest more in the scouting department to try and find finances and develop solutions immediately for your club."