With rates of manager sackings on the up, should there be a window in which clubs can dismiss coaches?
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00:00 It's one of the toughest jobs in sport. Being a manager is as much about coaching people as it is coaching football.
00:07 It could also mean instability, with the potential for a sacking just around the corner.
00:12 And with more of them losing their jobs than ever before, we're taking a look at why this is happening,
00:17 and whether it's time to introduce a transfer window for managers.
00:25 Hello there and welcome to Football Now from Doha. Right then, the European season is just six weeks old,
00:31 but already we're starting to see a number of managerial departures from across the continent.
00:35 Now we know that football is as much a business as it is a sport,
00:38 but do those coaching from the sidelines deserve more loyalty and respect,
00:42 or is the money that they earn enough for that ensuing rollercoaster ride?
00:46 Well on this week's episode of the show, we're taking a look at whether there should be a managerial transfer window,
00:51 just like there is for the players. More on that shortly, but first let's take a look at the numbers from last year.
00:57 Well the info from one of football's biggest data providers, CIES, makes for stark reading.
01:03 According to them, more than one in two coaches were fired worldwide in the 2022/23 season.
01:09 Yes, fired, not leaving voluntarily.
01:11 Incredibly, all 16 of the Tunisian first division teams sacked their head coaches,
01:16 with over 90% of Bosnian and North Macedonian top tiers doing the same.
01:21 On the other end of the scale, India was the most secure place to be a manager.
01:24 Just one of the 11 coaches in the top flight lost their job, Malta and Australia proving to be pretty steady options too.
01:31 I think that since the league was formed, the ISL, I think it's become vitally important for development of not only the players,
01:39 but also staff as well. And when I'm talking about staff, I'm on about the owners as well as everybody that's involved in the club.
01:45 I think the owners are seeing the trade now and they're starting to understand that Rome wasn't built in a day.
01:50 You can't just bring somebody in and have immediate fixes. You do need time to build.
01:55 And there are definitely clubs throughout India that have benefited from that.
01:59 But, you know, it does take a little bit of time.
02:02 Style, system, understanding, imparting your methods onto what you want from your players.
02:08 It's a whole, whole package that doesn't just get a fix in three to six months.
02:13 So for me, it's a real, real positive league going forward.
02:17 In terms of the top five European leagues, Italy proved to be the safest bet, although the numbers there are over a third.
02:23 The Premier League proved to be the toughest place to take charge of a club.
02:26 Fifty five percent of managers were sacked there last year.
02:29 I think for me, the issue is that so much of football and really the modern world now is about perception.
02:36 And clubs are very much obsessed with the branding side of things and how they're seen in the outside world than maybe they were previously.
02:42 So where 10, 20 years ago, owners would have said we're sticking to our process.
02:47 We've got faith in this manager and we're kind of going to stick with that.
02:50 Nowadays, they're more thinking, well, what are the people thinking when they look at us?
02:54 Because that's kind of how more football clubs are minded.
02:57 So I think that's an issue that we've got to challenge, first of all.
03:00 So is there room to manoeuvre in the complex and unpredictable world that is football management?
03:05 Well, let's remind ourselves about a new system that was introduced back in 2002, the transfer window, which was unfavourable with many clubs across Europe at the time.
03:14 Now it's hard to imagine the sport without it.
03:17 The set periods allow teams to focus on the football throughout the majority of the season and get their business done in between,
03:23 giving their players a degree of stability when thinking about the future.
03:26 And this coach says the equivalent for managers is something worth thinking about.
03:31 It seems a good idea because you have time to stay in the club, maybe you have time to show your work.
03:38 Because if you don't have the transfer ban, maybe you have only one month.
03:43 And with this, maybe you have six months to show our work.
03:46 One idea that I think has more sense is like in Spain, they only can manage one club each year, each season.
03:54 So if you start like Xavi in Barcelona, if you go out of Barcelona, you cannot coach more teams in the Spanish league.
04:01 So maybe that is a middle solution.
04:04 Because sometimes we know that the big clubs, when they are in bad shape, sometimes they want to go to a small club and hire the coach.
04:13 And sometimes they compromise the season of the small club with a big club.
04:18 If you are in the same league, that is a problem because you take the secret, let's say, from the other club.
04:25 Of course, for a manager, getting the sack is not always bad news.
04:29 Very often, and particularly in the top divisions, it can mean a hefty payout, also known as compensation.
04:34 For instance, Antonio Conte at Chelsea, Julian Nagelsmann at Bayern Munich and Laurent Blanc at PSG
04:39 all received somewhere between 17 and 27 million euros after they were relieved of their duties.
04:45 But is the money worth the pressure and the upheaval of being a top coach?
04:50 It may be worth it because we know that, like a manager, we love to work and to make the training and to prepare the games and to win the next game.
04:58 So even if the club doesn't pay the manager, we have a lot of people that are interested in the role because it's our passion.
05:07 The coach loves to work, loves the pressure, loves to win the next game.
05:15 And when we can win the next game, it's like a passion, it's like a rush that is not compared to nothing.
05:21 It's why a lot of coaches leave the family to work in other places.
05:26 The compromise is that it helps. So I think that what we have to drive is the passion for the game.
05:37 So everything is worth the pressure that we feel.
05:42 It certainly will be intriguing to see if 23/24 will be another record-breaking campaign for managerial departures, won't it?
05:49 That brings us to the end of this week's show.
05:51 Let us know your thoughts at home using the hashtag #footballnowmanager window and we'll see you next time. Bye for now!
05:56 [Music]