Brentford appoint Rasmus Ankersen and Phil Giles

Brentford finished fifth in the Championship table this season

Championship club Brentford have appointed Rasmus Ankersen and Phil Giles as co-directors of football.

The duo will be responsible for the recruitment of new players and staff, and will oversee the process of appointing a new head coach.

Bees manager Mark Warburton will leave the club following a disagreement over their recruitment policy, which will use statistical modelling.

Ankersen and Giles both have links to Bees owner Matthew Benham.

Ankersen is chairman of FC Midtjylland, the Danish Superliga side who are also owned by Benham.

The Herning-based club are on the verge of winning the Danish title following a 2-0 win over FC Copenhagen on Sunday.

Giles works for Benham's company, Smartodds, which provides statistical sports modelling services, and has been its head of quantitative sports research since 2010.

"The director of football role is a big one and splitting it means we can add the expertise of both of them to our management structure," Benham told the club website.

"I have worked with Rasmus at FC Midtyjlland and many of the methods we will be using at Brentford are already showing much promise there.

"Phil is someone who has excellent football knowledge and the analytical skills to assess players, tactics and teams in the way we want to."

Ankersen and Giles will replace sporting director Frank McParland, who has been on gardening leave since February and will also depart Griffin Park alongside Warburton and his assistant David Weir.

Warburton, Bees manager since December 2013, will leave the club on 30 May

Warburton's final match in charge was Friday's 3-0 defeat at Middlesbrough, which saw the west London club beaten 5-1 on aggregate in their Championship play-off semi-final.

Brentford's future recruitment is set to be based more on mathematical modelling and statistics which, allied to more traditional scouting methods, is referred to as a 'Moneyball' approach.

Moneyball is a system which emerged in baseball in which the smart use of undervalued statistics allowed financially disadvantaged teams to compete with better-resourced rivals.

Brentford have also announced their first summer signing, with Akaki Gogia set to join from German third division side Hallescher FC on a free transfer on 1 July.

The 23-year-old attacking midfielder, a Georgia-born Germany youth international, has signed a "long-term" contract, the Bees have announced.

Gogia started his career with VfL Wolfsburg and joined Hallescher FC in 2013