Unqualified Success

Consider this. A man widely acknowledged as one of the very best chairmen in English football wants to appoint a man universally admired for his ability and professionalism to manage his Premiership football club.

Unfortunately, another man deeply enmeshed in petty bureaucracy is showing alarming signs of doing everything in his power to prevent the move.

Having just lost his manager to the England set-up, Middlesbrough Chairman Steve Gibson is convinced that 35 year old Gareth Southgate is the ideal candidate to take the club forward. He is a distinguished player with enviable Premiership and international experience; he knows the club and he enjoys the support of the players, the staff and the fans; and if there was ever a man who seemed destined for management, that man is Gareth Southgate.

One snag. The LMA, in its infinite wisdom, has a rule which decrees that in order to manage a Premiership football club, a man must hold the UEFA Pro Licence and the organisation is adamant that there must be no exceptions whatsoever to this edict. That’s why they vehemently opposed the appointment of Glenn Roeder at Newcastle and why their chief executive John Barnwell was evidently almost incandescent with rage when their opposition proved unsuccessful.

Now it looks as if Barnwell is risking putting his blood pressure up again, because he has been quoted as saying: “They can’t do it. It’s as simple as that.”

The kindest construction you can put on this is that he sounds confident – though some might also detect a touch of defiance and a suspicion of arrogance in there somewhere. Does he mean ‘can’t do it’ the way Newcastle United did it? Or does he mean ‘can’t do it’ precisely because Newcastle did it and whatever happens, the LMA mustn’t be seen to go through all that embarrassment again?

As we stand on the brink of the 2006 World Cup finals, perhaps it is appropriate to remind Mr Barnwell of what happened 40 years ago, when England won the competition. He will know that the manager was Alf (later Sir Alf) Ramsey, still the most successful international manager in our history. He will also know that on Alf’s cv (if indeed he had one) formal coaching qualifications would have been conspicuous by their absence.

Fortunately, there was in those days no mighty LMA machine to restrain him from winning the World Cup, as he predicted he would.

Amateurs!