The departures of Newcastle United manager Kevin Keegan and West Ham United’s Alan Curbishley just three games into the Premier League season had nothing to do with their teams’ results on the field.
They had everything to do with interference off it from the rich men who own and run their clubs, according to both Keegan and Curbishley.
Once, a manager was judged purely on his team’s results and performances. Both West Ham and Newcastle have made decent starts to the new campaign, currently sitting in fifth and 11th places respectively in the Premier League.
Many of the businessmen who now own England’s top clubs admit, however, that they are no longer interested only in results on the field.
They are interested in replica shirt sales, global branding, awareness of image, developing their other enterprises off the back of the club they own and maximising revenue streams.
”If you’re looking at an opportunity for branding and getting yourself out there what better than the Premier League today?” Mohammed Ali al-Hashimi, executive chairperson of Zabeel Investments, part of the Dubai consortium that tried to buy Liverpool last year, said.
The big-money owners are, it seems, also interested in bringing the players they want to their clubs, often regardless of the manager’s opinion.
It is a trend that seems set to continue and the manager’s traditional role of running the club is likely to come under increasing threat — as Keegan said when he quit as Newcastle boss on Thursday. Curbishley said much the same thing when he left Upton Park on Wednesday.
Nothing new
Rich men owning England’s football clubs is nothing new — they have been doing so since the game turned professional in the 1880s.
For most of the last 125 years they have enjoyed the kudos and prestige of bankrolling their clubs, basking in the glow of success when it came. They have also allowed their managers and coaching staff to choose the players they want, pick the team and run day-to-day affairs.
It does not work like that at many top-level Premier League clubs any more.
The billionaires now moving into English football and their named ”directors of football” and other apparatchiks decide which players to buy and sell — often without consulting the manager.
Keegan says he did not want James Milner to leave St James’s Park last week but the winger was sold to Aston Villa anyway.
Keegan had made it clear that he needed a new left-back to strengthen his defence but instead the board, led by billionaire chairperson Mike Ashley, brought in Ignacio Gonzalez, a Uruguayan midfielder, and Xisco, a Spanish striker.
Curbishley did not want Anton Ferdinand and George McCartney to leave West Ham, but both players were sold to Sunderland. He wanted to bring in some players on loan but says he was told he could not.
West Ham were bought by an Icelandic consortium in 2006 and bank chairperson Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, one of the country’s richest men, took over as club chairperson last year.
Moot point
The new Arab billionaire owners of Manchester City have indicated already which players they want to buy when the transfer window reopens in January.
They want Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United, Cesc Fabregas from Arsenal and Fernando Torres from Liverpool.
No manager would turn down any of the trio of course, but whether City manager Mark Hughes was consulted about the shopping list is a moot point.
Those players also happen to be under contract at their clubs.
Managers look set to become increasingly isolated as the Arab princes, or the Icelandic bankers or the Russian oligarchs try to outdo each other with one goal in mind — becoming bigger than Manchester United.
In reality, though, putting together title-winning teams is a far more complex science than opening up a cheque book and writing an amount for tens of millions.
Manchester United, where Alex Ferguson has been manager since 1986, are testimony to that.
Manchester United’s football team are controlled by one footballing man — Ferguson.
As he said in a Sky Sports television interview this year, somebody has to run a club and it should only be the manager.
It is a tried and trusted method of success. — Reuters