- The 25 players Arsenal are preparing to buy this summer
- Aaropn Ramsey gets a new job, Monga to Arsenal, England flutter in the WC
By Tony Attwood
As you might recall we’ve taken a bit of interest in the issue of the sacking of football club managers of late, and it is interesting that the CIES Football Observatory has just published one of its weekly posts on this very subject.
They have found that well over half of the teams in 55 largest leagues in the world have changed their manager or head coach at least once in the past 12 months. What’s more, this is the second time they have done this analysis and each time the numbers have come out pretty much the same.
Now it doesn’t take any imagination to suggest that with over half the managers being sacked in a year, there is an inherent instability in the issue of managers in clubs. Put another way, if a club is doing worse than the directors expected (no matter how ludicrous those expectations) then they blame the manager. And they have been doing this for several years, looking at the proportion of managers who have been kicked out.
So I guess there might be some sort of good feeling generated by kicking out the manager. First the fans often blame the manager as the most obvious person responsible for their club winning nothing. Second, this action protects the board as none of them lose what might well be a very cushy job sitting in the best seats and every now and then kicking out the manager, knowing that there will be a dozen other such men who have also been kicked out elsewhere of late, and who are looking for a job, having had relevant experience.
Such thoughts came to mind on looking at www.football-observatory.com including the thought that evidence shows that kicking out the manager tends not to make things better. (One might consider Tottenham at this point). Indeed, if we look at the most extreme case of manager dumping in terms of a country (Cyprus) we find every single one of their clubs in the top division kicked out their manager in a period of one year.
In some leagues, the habit of manager dumping is more prevalent than in others, but the fact that across Europe the practice is so common suggests that getting rid of the manager when things are not perfect is commonplace, even though it certainly doesn’t seem to work.
So why might this be?
One reason is that the board has passed over to the manager the responsibility for getting the club up the league, and that is a simple measurement. If the club is slipping the manager is failing. After all, the manager was told the budget he would have, he knew the players he would inherit, and he still took the job. So he pays the price.
This of course, protects the board, who have been having quite a cushy lifetime sitting in the best seats and occasionally blaming the manager. Indeed, apart from sacking and appointing, they don’t have much to do. They get free tickets, free transport, free lunches, free booze – and for doing what? Appointing a manager, sacking him and appointing thee next one.
Third, we have the fact that sacking a board member is quite a difficult affair, not least because anyone seen doing it will be seen as a dubious person himself, and so will as likely as not be the next person blamed when something goes wrong.
Fourth, most directors of clubs really don’t know much about football; they are there because they put money in the club, or their fathers were there, or a director of another local firm owes them a favour. They are not directors because they know about football.
Of course, in regard to this and quite a few other issues, Arsenal are different, because Arsenal are owned by a family that owns lots of sports clubs, and so they have got a bit of an idea of what is going on, and have learned that far from sorting things out when things are not right, sacking the manager usually makes this worse. It can work (as with Arteta’s predecessor) but when it does the owner is still to blame for appointing the wrong guy the last time around.
But this points to another major problem – there are not that many really good managers and those that are around don’t guarantee instant success, even when they have access to vast transfer funds. So when the board is faced with a bunch of wannabe managers each telling a tale of what is wrong with this club, the board often haven’t got a clue who to appoint. So they pick one because he did ok at his last club. And if they get the wrong one, well, it’s not going to be their job on the line.
As for the sacked managers, they go to the next club and report that they were sacked because the board couldn’t listen to the truth about the state of the club and the need for a massive clear-out.
Each sacked manager leaves with a pay-off – which means less transfer money available for the next man. So it goes on. We’re lucky there was only one Emery and only one Rioch.
