Where is Edu’s successor?
By Tony Attwood
I’m occasionally asked why I write so much about what the media says concerning football, such as in those two articles highlighted above. And the answer is simple: the media works hard to frame the way we think about the game, the clubs, the managers and the players.
It is of course natural that all fans want to find someone or something to blame for their club’s failure to win mathes and competitions, and the media fill that gap suggesting it is the tactics, the bad transfers, or anything else they can debate without much evidence..
It is also a fact that the media won’t blame referees for anything other than the occasional wrong decision by referees. This is not to say that I believe there is wholesale bias by referees, but that I think the absolute refusal by the media even to contemplate the data on referees suggests there is something odd going on.
So the central theme is that any club being discussed, is a club that has made errors which any semi-decent manager or administrator would not have made.
Take the comment, “It is reflective of Arsenal’s “surprise” at the Edu news that there is no succession plan in place”. That phrase turned up all over the place.
It’s one of those clever phrases that journalists use to get readers into the frame of mind that allows multiple unproven assertions to slip through and appear, so they can be read as facts.
Now that might seem to be part of the manipulative process that is the essence of football journalism today – a way of framing our mindset on issues in football. But whether it is manipulative or not, what it most certainly is, is a way of suggesting that the writers and editors of this newspaper or blog or whatever, are somehow in the know, and more away of footballing reality than those running Arsenal FC.
Indeed, consider the issue of “succession plan”. For there to be a succession plan one needs to know roughly when the incumbent is likely to leave, and that at that time, the person chosen to take over is likely to be available.
That can work of course. Take for example the top positions in a bank – positions that people tend to hold for a decade or more, and then leave upon retirement. Knowing that the the top person in a particularly important department is going to retire in say three years, a succession plan is set out – often in liaison with the incumbent.
But for jobs where movement is common, and can come out of the blue (often because the incumbent is sacked) this is much harder to achieve. Edu is 46, and thus some 20 years away from retirement, and working in an industry where he is highly regarded as a sporting director. It was thus always very likely that at some stage or other he would be likely to move on.
Plus, with more and more money pouring into clubs as the mega-wealthy see the notion of having a fleet of clubs in different countries as an ideal way of either passing their time, or perhaps making more money legally, or maybe even moving money from one place to another without the authorities being able to track what is going on, (and of course I make no accusation in relation to any particular person or club) then in each case it is likely that men with a high reputation and a lot of experience, could be tempted away from a single club into a multi-club project.
That’s how it goes in all businesses and in all industries. And the notion of knowing who you would like to have come in as a replacement is nonsense because a) it is considered very bad practice to chat up a member of a rival company especially when b) you have no idea when you might actually have a vacancy.
But there is another factor. Journalists get their reputation by knowing what is going on, not by being taken by surprise. Indeed the whole essence of their trade is the implication that they are in the know. Being caught out doesn’t really fit with that model, so when it happens they immediately create stories that either suggest that the organisation that has taken them by surprise is acting chaotically, or that such a move has always been possible, and the organisation is badly run if it has not prepared for this.
So the implication is NOT that the journalists have been taken by surprise, but that Arsenal have been caught out/. But assuming that there was nothing in his contract that stopped Edu from negotiating a change of job with anyone else, then he was perfectly within his rights to open such discussions, and it could happen any time.
To put something in his contract which stopped him from negotiating with anyone else, would have been illegal because to have included such a clause would have been a restraint of trade. Although that does not mean that Edu was free to tell anyone who popped along private information about what he and others at Arsenal were up to… not at all.
Restraint of trade in English is legal when it prevents the employee from engaging in a similar business within a specified geographical area and within a specified period in competition with the employer, nothing more.
Edu suddenly leaving doesn’t show Arsenal in a bad light – rather it shows how clever they were to fit Edu into his job at the club and keep him there. In fact Edu was the general co-ordinator of the Brazil national team until 2019, and becoming Arsenal’s first technical director in July that year was a great coup for Arsenal. Moving into a multi-club environment is an obvious move for him – and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Arsenal didn’t have their eyes on someone who could take on the job, ready for the day when Edu moved further up the football ladder, although of course at this stage all discussions are total secret.
David Cootes has been suspended for saying something about Klopp.
I would love AW to be involved in some way , in our search for new players . . He would inspire so much of confidence for players to come to The Arsenal .
His statue welcomes all !