Who is Andrés Felipe Altamar?

Profile

Biography

Andrés Altamar represents a modern football executive profile built around scouting intelligence, player development, and long-term sporting strategy. With experience across Latin America and the United States, his career has combined recruitment leadership, academy development, and football operations within professional football environments and international scouting structures.

Currently serving as Sporting Director at Barcelona SC in Ecuador, Altamar has positioned himself as one of the emerging football executives in South America, helping lead the club’s sporting structure, scouting operations, recruitment strategy, and long-term talent development processes. His role includes overseeing professional and academy scouting, sporting intelligence, and football planning within one of the continent’s most historic clubs.

Before joining Barcelona SC, Altamar worked as Head of Scouting and Recruitment at Los Angeles FC, strengthening his reputation within international player identification and recruitment. Earlier in his career, he spent four years working within the City Football Group structure, focusing on scouting and recruitment across Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and Peru, while also contributing to the development of CFG’s partner club project with Club Bolívar in Bolivia as Lead Scout supporting recruitment and sporting planning processes.

His career also includes leadership roles as Sporting Director, Head of Academy, Head of Scouting Department, and Player Manager within multiple football organizations in Colombia, alongside work in football education as a Scouting Professor at La Pizarra del DT.

Academically, Altamar combines a background in Business Administration and Sports Management with certifications from CONMEBOL, UEFA, MBP, and The FA, including UEFA’s Elite Scouting Programme and specialist education in talent identification, football analysis, and scouting methodology.

Fluent in both Spanish and English, Andrés Altamar represents a new generation of football leaders who combine recruitment expertise, strategic thinking, international networking, and a modern understanding of player development within high-performance football environments.

Fluent in both Spanish and English, Andrés Altamar represents a new generation of football leaders who combine recruitment expertise, strategic thinking, international networking, and a modern understanding of player development within high-performance football environments.

Key Insights

• Andrés Altamar has built an international football executive profile across scouting, recruitment, academy development, and sporting strategy.
• His experience includes Barcelona SC, Los Angeles FC, City Football Group, and football education through La Pizarra del DT.
• He believes modern recruitment must combine structure, data, live scouting, character evaluation, and long-term player development.

Our Exclusive Interview with Andrés Altamar

You have worked across scouting, recruitment, sporting management, and youth development in different football cultures. How has your understanding of talent identification evolved throughout your career?

Football has been constantly evolving. Now is more physical, intense, with a high pace in the games. The recruitment process needs to be in the same way. At youth ages you need to identify the potential of development, which areas the players need to improve, and what will be the next steps. It’s important to continue evaluating technical, tactical, and physical aspects but today it is necessary to identify the mentality of the players, his environment, and how competitive it is. We need to identify a commercial player, that player who can adapt to different contexts.

Your experience includes roles within both City Football Group and Los Angeles FC, two organizations known for modern football structures and long-term planning. What do elite clubs today do differently in recruitment compared to traditional football environments?

Basically, the clubs need a good structure, planning, organization, today all the clubs have technology and information. But the difference is how I can use the information to the best form. It’s important to know the history for the club, what type of players had success in the past? What type of coaches had success in the past? How is the culture of the city? What style of game do the fans like? All these questions go to how I can build a sports project. How I can design the recruitment process. The difference for the elite clubs it’s that they invest in structure.

Beyond identifying talent, modern recruitment departments are expected to create sustainable sporting value. How do you balance data, live scouting, character evaluation, and long-term projection when assessing players?

All are fundamental parts of the process of assessing. Each club decides what value to give for each one. But the idea is that we can create 360 grades for the player. The data help to filter the information, the live scouting confirms some important aspects, (body language, attitude, capacity to understand the game with and without the ball) The character determines which type of players it is and what role he will be in the team (Leader, team player, individualist, etc.)

You have also worked in football education as a scouting professor. What are the biggest misconceptions young scouts and aspiring sporting directors still have about the modern football industry?

One of the most concerns that young scouts have is that they are more focused to be recognized on social media; they care more about the status that football can give you. In the past, social media, technology was not part of the recruitment process, and the work of the scouts was low-profile work. So, I always advise them to focus more, to watch more football, study more about the game (tactically, technically), attend tournaments, share with people in the industry and to be more focused on their job. A good job opens doors.

A good job opens doors.

Having recently taken on the role of Sporting Director at Barcelona SC in Ecuador, what excites you most about helping shape football structures and sporting development at one of South America’s most historic clubs?

Barcelona is the most popular team of Ecuador, with around 7,5 millions of fans in the country. That it’s a big responsibility. We are introducing a structure in the first team and in the academy, our idea is to develop more players. Guayaquil it’s a football city, passion, we need to build a team that the fans feel identified with. We are creating a Barcelona player profile, we are focused on different zones of Guayaquil to recruit players, our scouting department are introducing different zones of the coast of Ecuador as Esmeraldas, Borbon. In the first team we create a scouting department that focuses on South American leagues that our principal markets are (Argentina, Uruguay, Colombia, Panama, Chile, Paraguay). So, our commitment is that in the future Barcelona can play with most players coming from the academy and to produce more players to the Ecuador National teams.

Your career reflects a strong international profile across Latin America, the United States, and global football networks. Looking ahead, how do you want Andrés Altamar to be recognized within the football industry over the next decade?

It’s a good question; I would like to be recognized in the future as a guy that worked to help different projects, to build football structure, to contribute to educating people that want to work on football. I am always open to teach, to give some advice, to listen to other opinions, to learn as different persons. Football teaches you day by day. My achievement is to be recognized as a good leader.

Football teaches you day by day.

FAQ

Who is Andrés Felipe Altamar?

Andrés Altamar represents a modern football executive profile built around scouting intelligence, player development, and long-term sporting strategy.

What is Andrés Altamar’s current role?

Currently serving as Sporting Director at Barcelona SC in Ecuador, Altamar has positioned himself as one of the emerging football executives in South America, helping lead the club’s sporting structure, scouting operations, recruitment strategy, and long-term talent development processes.

What experience does Andrés Altamar have in football?

With experience across Latin America and the United States, his career has combined recruitment leadership, academy development, and football operations within professional football environments and international scouting structures.