Would You Rather Your Club Had a Billionaire Owner or a Good Manager?

By: Daryl | September 4th, 2008

The events of the last few days point pretty clearly to one thing: the end of the football manager. Alan Curbishley quit because West Ham sold players without his consent, Kevin Keegan may or may not be about to do the same thing.

In the age of billionaire businessman owners and/or sporting directors, managers just don’t have the control they used to over what goes on at a football club. Even Mark Hughes falls into this. You’d think he’s the luckiest manager around right now, but consider what happened recently:

Man City bought Robinho pretty much as a statement of intent, not as part of a Mark Hughes masterplan. Do you think Hughes sat down with Abu Dhabi United Group and told them he needed a moody Brazilian who wanted to play for Chelsea? Of course not. Robinho is a trophy player, paid for as proof that Man City are serious about spending some money.

The trend continued the next day, with Dr. Sulaiman Al-Fahim talking about buying Cesc Fabgreas, Fernando Torres and Cristiano Ronaldo. That wasn’t a Mark Hughes shopping list, that was a Galactico shopping list. Notice how it didn’t have any defenders on it?

No matter how much money there is to spend, the Premier League still favours teams who give power to the manager. The three most successful clubs in recent years – Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal – have all been rewarded for faith in their manager, and punished for deviating from it. Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger have built teams in their image., and the wheels only came off Chelsea’s success wagon when the owner started interfering. In hindsight Roman Abramovich must wish he’d just given Jose Mourinho £30 million to spend on whoever he wanted instead of lumbering him Andriy Shevchenko.

Worse, the age of managers doing a solid job and everyone being happy with that appears to be on the way out. David Moyes is a great example of such a manager, building a competitive team at Everton with the sort of money Man City’s owners would giggle at. But just today, Toffees owner Bill Kenwright admitted that Everton need a billionaire owner.

“This club has always punched above its weight with a great manager in control. It is unwise to continue to rely on that to be successful.”

Yes, clubs need money to be successful. But money doesn’t buy success, not without a good man at the helm being given the backing to do his job properly. Obviously the dream combo is a billionaire willing to trust a good boss. But that’s rarely the reality.

And if it came down to a choice between either a billionaire megalomaniac owner or a good manager on a limited budget, I’m guessing most fans would have to agree with Bill Kenwright.

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Category: English Premier League

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JP

HI Daryl,

After past few years of observation and being full agent spectator, I would said both billionaire owner and good manager are important in their different aspect.

A "good" manager can be determined as a person who able to manage his team well,team player problems solving,motivation etc and finally able to "direct" his kick-off players well to be attrative "actor" ! It's no arguement that majority of the games are manipulated !!

Most of the audience and spectators already knew about this fact! They won't quit watching the game mostly for 2 reasons:
1. They are betting on the game; they want a good game
2. If they're not bet, they want a good game most.
But spectators would definately quit if the game was "directed" in the way that "too ugly" or fake obviously ! Even they have put on money for that game, once they found too obviously fake, "AHSS...no need to watch la, too ugly ..." they rather check on their instant messager (SMS) goal alert for rapid growth of high efficiency message available at-one-click nowaday!
These are the point why a FC need a good manager.
He is super maniard ~ and golden award winning Director ! .....(to be continued in part II)
frem

well a good manager can only get you so far. Everton are at their peak since many of the team are getting older and finding replacements is getting hard.
Chelsea got into the CL before roman took over and that was partly because ranieri did a decent job putting together a decent team, they spent quite a bit and had huge debt and thats why roman was able to take over.
When roman came he gave ranieri a shot at getting either CL or PL(ranieri nearly got there but like grant he was a nearly man). Roman then got mourinho who had just won the CL with porto, gave him an unlimited transfer budget and asked for a winning side. Drogba, makelele, essien, carvalho, cech, ferriera and robben all came in. And over two years he changed chelsea from a decent team like everton to a winning team, mourinho bought players that won not just fancy pants attackers with no backbone(real madrid). Mourinho also bought alot of wasteful players like bhoulahrouz who isnt that bad but not CL level. The problem is roman had other idea's he needed to make chelsea a name so sheva and ballack came in, ballack was able to cement a spot but sheva was never the same at the faster paced league. Romans advisers also are not bad scouts they are the ones getting all the youngsters and bought in alex, kalou, mikel and plenty of youth players.
ManCity is slightly different, they are kind of the dubai of PL now, they have more money then sense and want to make ManCity known and admired as quickly as possible. Expect many players to come in that hughes doesnt want, i think what will happen is the abidabi group will choose the forwards and AM's while hughes needs to get the defenders.
mele419

Good manager.
A good manager can work with a small budget, make smart transactions and coach good football.
Ak

Not much of a choice in theory: the billionaire. Having a good manager will only take you so far, unfortunately. Although, I suppose it all depends on how stupid that billionaire is (does Mike Ashley fully comprehend the consequences of sacking Keegan? He'd need a whole SAS regiment armed with tanks and attack helicopters as bodyguards).
Brian

Daryl, it's not just the end of the manager, it's the end of the idea of expertise in football. Notice how this is happening on both ends of the spectrum: regular fans are leaving their clubs to form their own tiny alternatives (FCUM) or investing in myfc-like schemes to buy their own clubs and pick the players themselves on the internet; owners are wanting to pick their own players and overrule the manager's tactics (Abramovich). On both sides you see complete disregard for the old-fashioned notion of the professional football man who knows what he's doing.

Give me David Moyes or Arsene Wenger any day. They may not win trophies every year, but their clubs seldom go through the ridiculous high-profile flameouts that come along with billionaire owners. Shinawatra was supposed to have deep pockets, too, and he was in the process of sinking the club before the Abu Dhabi group bailed him out.
Abby

And the success train derailed when the manager was undermined...
Rob

But you could also argue that they won the title under Jose Mourinho (a great manager) and not under Ranieri or Grant (good managers) which is a good argument for good managers.
McTalian

Chelsea pre-Abramovich (oodles of decades): 1955 title. Few FA Cups. Lots of back-slapping for nice football.

Chelsea with Abramovich (few years): Consecutive titles. CL contender every year. FA Cups.

Kinda makes the argument for billionaires over brilliant managers.
j

Rob - I have to agree with you but also think most have short memories, don't recall the pre 1992 era and certainly don't support the game on the regional level.

This is a massive business now and unfortunately support in lower leagues isn't what it should be. There is a sad irony that we have Millwall, Leicester City and Leeds, amongst other great clubs in League One and it is barely discussed. To me one of the big stories of Football (in England right now), on the pitch, is the return of Leicester but how many will hear?

This also relates to Man City as I didn't hear a signal comment (other than my own) of how this will impact Ched Evans and Daniel Sturridge. Both of them are superb talents who will flourish on the international scene but effectively must plan on their exits now.

Talk with you soon -
Rob

They don't need a defender with Richard Dunne back there!

Seriously though, the Prem seems to have got confused as to how to grow - it's forcing a continental style, but alot of the time they don't know how to work it. But it can work.

At my club, lowly Bristol Rovers, we have this Director of Football/Manager combination in Lennie Lawrence and Paul Trollope, and since its been implemented, the club has grown, from bottom division relegation fodder, to FA Cup heroes last season. Because Lawerence is the experience that Trollope needs behind him, and they clearly get on, and both have an idea of where to take the club forward.

At Newcastle, its just madness. Wise and Keegan clearly do not get on, cannot work together, and have different ideas of where to take the club. And Keegan, having been at Newcastle under Sir John Hall probably anticipated a Good Old Days syndrome when he went back, but the structure is now different.

I think its going to vary from club to club, but I reckon you can have a good manager and money, they'll have to co-exist, or you'll end up with every club being like Real Madrid.