The Manager: Inside the Minds of Football's Leaders Read Free

chairman, the players, the fans, the press and the public. (There were always the governing bodies
too, but with little direct impact on the daily life of the manager.) Today the groupings are much the same. What has changed is the degree of influence and leverage they have. Take the chairman,
for instance. In a game where cash is often king, the man who holds the purse strings has massive influence. He is, after all, the person ultimately responsible for hiring (and firing) the manager,
and with the rise of the new all-powerful owner, these leaders are becoming public figures in a much more dramatic way than ever before.
    Other groupings have also become more powerful in their own right. Top players whose predecessors would nervously approach their manager for a rise now get their agents involved in contracting
stand-offs with millions of pounds at stake. The public who used to confine their conversations to bars and pubs now exert influence through social media. And members of the press, who used to be
the guardians of footballing standards, are now influential enough to get a manager fired. For the managers themselves, this means a tough, multi-layered and often frenetic environment. Never have
the principles of centredness, self-knowledge, handling pressure and personal renewal been so important.
    The Centre of Authority
    The prevalent model of organisation in the world’s leading football clubs sees the manager as the centre of authority. Hodgson relishes this aspect of the role and
considers it a privilege: ‘The reward for success in our profession as a coach is to reach a position where you are that focal point, where you are the person that everyone – from board
to fans – is looking to for what they all require: a team that wins football matches. You’re the man who has been given the task of producing that team and organising that team –
and it can’t get much more important than that in football. What is more important in a football club than the team that goes out every week and wins or loses? Manchester United today are a
worldwide institution and they sold for hundreds of millions of pounds on the stock exchange. But the bottom line is, it’s still those 13 or 14 players who run out every Saturday in a red
shirt who are the essence of the business. If Manchester United spiral down into the second or third divisions of the Football League, then all of this will fly out of the window irrespective of
how good they are commercially. So Alex Ferguson was a key, key figure, because he was the man who governed the core of the business for so long.’
    Sir Alex Ferguson as much as anyone embodied this principle of central authority over the last 26 years at Old Trafford. ‘I always remember starting at Manchester United. [Chairman] Martin
Edwards said to me that the guiding principle of our football club is that the manager is the most important person at Manchester United. Everything is guided by what the manager thinks. There has
never been an occasion in my time that the board has overruled the manager at any point on how you control the football club.’ His great peer and rival in north London, Arsenal’s
Arsène Wenger, goes a step further. ‘I don’t think it can be the future of the manager to have no control, because the quality of the manager is basically determined by the
quality of his control. How can you judge a manager if it is not for the fact that he controls the club? I believe that the manager is a strong guide inside the club. His players must have the
feeling that as well as establishing authority, he has complete control. If the manager is not the most important man at the football club, then why do we sack the manager if it doesn’t go
well?’
    Whatever the model of governance in a football club, the manager is invariably the pivotal figure. Hodgson feels the same responsibility applies to the manager of national teams: ‘Managing
a national side brings its own