Crystal Palace are set to appoint Ben Wrigglesworth as their new chief scout, adding another senior voice to a recruitment department the club is widening for next season. The 33-year-old is expected to take charge of Palace’s scouting and help sporting director Matt Hobbs, who worked with him at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

The move is being searched now because Palace are building around a Europa League campaign and want more reach in markets they know less well, especially South America. They are also bringing in Botafogo scout Alessandro Brito, who is due to head up the club’s work in that region, as Palace try to sharpen the detail behind the players they sign rather than rely on a smaller scouting operation.

Wrigglesworth arrives with a reputation built over a long spell at Wolves, where he has been head of scouting for the past four years after holding a series of recruitment jobs since joining from Arsenal in 2018. He has also worked as deputy chief scout and senior recruitment lead, and was influential in the signings of Matheus Cunha and Joao Gomes. Cunha later moved to Manchester United in a £62.5 million deal, while Gomes earned a Brazil call-up and was Wolves’ player of the season in 2025.

His record stretches back further still. Before Wolves, Wrigglesworth spent more than three years with Leicester City as a scout and played a part in bringing N’Golo Kante to the club while working alongside Steve Walsh, the same recruitment setup that helped deliver Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy. That history helps explain why Palace see him as more than a caretaker hire.

There is, though, a sharper edge to the timing. Wrigglesworth was sidelined last year by Vitor Pereira, who ran Wolves’ summer recruitment with Domenico Teti, and he is believed to have recommended Harry Wilson from Fulham only for that suggestion to be rejected. Palace are betting that a recruiter who has worked across several levels and several clubs can thrive again with more authority than he had at Wolves.

Chairman Steve Parish signalled that kind of expansion last December when he said the club were looking to bring someone else in and that scouting was no longer a one-person job. He also said he was enjoying working with Hobbs and described the direction of travel as a good portent. With Palace already close to hiring Lens manager Pierre Sage after Oliver Glasner left at the end of his two-and-a-half-year contract, the recruitment overhaul is moving in step with the rest of the club.

What remains unclear is the formal timing. Palace have not confirmed when Wrigglesworth’s appointment will be completed, and that leaves one small delay in an otherwise clear shift: the club is reshaping how it finds players, and it is doing it before the demands of Europe arrive.