This weekend, Carlo
Ancelotti compared his role at Chelsea to that of Ferguson at Man Utd,
claiming his role was technical only: he is not the ‘manager’. This has
helped kick-start the debate we love so much: should all power be placed
in the hands of the manager, or can a more ‘continental’ approach do the
job?
In England, the idea of a ‘head coach’ (rather than a
manager) system tends to be viewed in the same terms as ditching
sterling for the Euro, drinking tea without milk or wearing a hat
indoors: unpalatable. Fans, the media and indeed managers in the game
tend to cling onto the idea of the traditional English football manager
– someone who has ultimate control at the club, from training sessions
and nutrition regimes through to player wages and transfers.
Talk on Chelsea chat forums in response to Ancelotti’s
comments bears this out: never is anger directed at Abramovich (the man
solely responsible for Chelsea moving into the upper echelons of world
football) as much as when it is perceived that he has ‘interfered’.
The continuing success of Alex Ferguson, of course, helps to
perpetuate the idea that his is the ideal model for achieving success in
football. Ferguson, we’re told, has his fingers in all the pies at Man
Utd, and has succeeded for twenty years. Surely this is the only recipe
for success? Some pundits would have us believe it.
This
model has of course worked at other clubs, and certainly still practiced
(most commonly at smaller teams). It has worked in other sports too:
Clive Woodward, for example, was massively hands-on during his time with
the England rugby team, micro-managing every conceivable aspect of squad
life.
In contrast, the model of management seen typically as
continental European, where the manager’s role is more akin to being a
head coach and other figures have a greater influence on club finance
and transfer policy, is viewed with deep suspicion and distrust on this
side of the channel. As foreign influences on the Premier League –
predominantly in the form of owners from overseas – have grown over the
last decade, the ‘Director of Football’ has become the focal point for
the almost xenophobic assumption that draining of power away from the
manager is always a destructive thing.
Looking at this
rationally however, the old-school British idea of the god-like football
manager is surely well past its sell by date. This is an idea that dates
back way past the establishment of the Premier League, when football was
an altogether different business. Before the explosion of football in
the 80s and 90s, squads were half the size and players were paid £200 a
month. It certainly wasn’t an ‘international’ game in the same way, and
wasn’t nearly so commercialised.
Against that backdrop, it
was far more plausible – and sensible – that one manager co-ordinated
everything at a club. The best managers were tacticians and motivators,
but were also organisers, pulling together plans for everything from
formations to away fixture travel arrangements.
Now, Premier
League football teams are commercially geared, multi-national
organisations with multi-million pound turnovers. They have squads at
every age group and draw on the talents of hundreds of employees. The
stakes, too, are much higher: arguably lack of success on the pitch has
never come at such a high price in the history of the game.
With all that in mind, having one all-knowing manager
co-ordinate all aspects of a club’s activity isn’t really credible or
sustainable. The so-called continental model of having a Director of
Football figure acting as a make-weight between the ‘manager’ and a
club’s hierarchy – a figure who can blend technical with business
understanding – isn’t such a ludicrous proposition. Naturally it’s
horses for courses but, for some clubs, a system that balances power
slightly upwards and away from the manager is perfect, as demonstrated
by some of Europe’s most successful clubs for decades.
The
key thing here, of course, is the balance. Even under such a system, the
manager should be the most important person at the football club, given
the freedom to develop and execute a vision for the team. A big part of
that should be the hierarchy empowering him to deliver on that vision,
providing a kind of ‘sense check’ from both a sporting and business
perspective and constructing the parameters within which he should work.
And this is where it’s going wrong at Chelsea: that balance
hasn’t been correctly struck. That Ancelotti can’t select his right-hand
man or, as we are led to believe, isn’t consulted on who that person
should be, is just one piece of evidence that suggests the freedom to
build on his vision is constricting.
So the system isn’t
necessarily a bad one – it can work and we shouldn’t attack it purely
out of some old-fashioned notion of how things should be or, worse, how
things were done. Chelsea’s problem seems to be that there are too many
competing, self-interested visions for the club at its upper reaches
that muddy the water. The balance needs to be redressed, and Ancelotti
has a job on his hands.