Harry Redknapp is a manager often accused of not doing very much, of leaving the coaching to the coaches, the running of the club to the chairman and of leaving his tactics to chance. All a little unfair perhaps but criticisms he faces nonetheless. However his arguably minimalist approach to management highlights an issue in modern management that, although not a fact across all clubs, is widespread in most leagues.
When Harry first started management, he told BBC News, the managers would:
“Do the transfers, you would do the contracts with the players, you would negotiate the contracts with the players, you would negotiate the transfer fees with the different managers at the different clubs…nowadays we’ve all got chief executives, you’ve got chairmen who are all hands on and really the business side of the club is completely run by them.”
Now you might think that this can only be beneficial to managers who, after all, have enough to deal with as it is. This would be true if the managers still had a say in the financial aspects of the club, to take away their involvement in that however would be to decrease the power of their position as a whole.
Wages
In his interview with Robert Peston Redknapp yearns for a time when wages were not only reasonable (he quotes £10 per week) but when the wages were decided by the manager and were dependent on a player’s form and loyalty. Basically he covets a time when the manager had complete control over his players and the club. He cites the reasoning for this being a necessity not only because it made the manager’s job easier in terms of controlling his players but there was also a clear system of motivation for the players. If they impressed the manager they would be paid more. Unfortunately the system is not as sustainable as it once was. Where players used to be given £10 per week increases now they want an extra £10,000 per week.
Clearly with the Bosman ruling in today’s game the control could never be the same as it was, the players could still demand more than they used to be able to because of the threat of leaving the clubs for free at the end of their contract. However Redknapp highlights the problems faced in today’s clubs of players’ agents going above the managers and straight to the chief executives. Now this isn’t necessarily a problem in clubs where there are long standing managers such as Arsene Wenger or Alex Ferguson. At those clubs there would be no point in going above the manager when the managers have established situations whereby they are effectively in control due to the length of their tenure. However this is not the case at most clubs and whilst the role of the chief executives might be important for the commercial running of the club, when it comes to contract negotiations it tends to undermine the authority of the manager with the players.