Yesterday, Southampton’s chairman Nicola Cortese resigned. Depending on how long you have been trailing this story, he is either being tempted to take up the chef exec job at struggling Milan, or has found working under owner Katharine Liebharr too much. It’s also possible that Ms Liebharr has insisted on a return on her family’s two rounds of investment in the club and forced his hand.
Five years ago Cortese was a working in Switzerland as a banker and acted on behalf of the now-deceased and father of Katharine, Markus Liebharr. They successfully put a deal together to buy Southampton FC and rescue the club from administration (liquidation is not inevitable, some clubs survive). Cortese had no previous experience in the football industry.
Southampton are a small club who seem cursed to produce incredibly talented youth players, only to see extraordinarily bad executives spurn their bounty. I remember writing about their ‘blood on the boardroom carpet’ six years ago.
A year ago this Saturday, Cortese sacked Nigel Atkins, the manager who won them two successive promotions and put them in a comfortable position on the FA Premier League. Cortese was to 2013 what Vincent Tan is to 2014, the butt of a thousand jokes, but none of us were reading the script.
Cortese’ next move was to appoint Argentine Mauricio Pochettino, the 40-year-old recently sacked manager of Espanyol. Southampton haven’t looked back, despite the words “Hooiveld” and “Fox” regularly featuring on team sheets.
Pochettino is now one of the hottest properties in football but he’s not the story, his former boss is. In appointing a young, low-profile, manager, Cortese tackled square-on the biggest problem in football – the vast risk invested on the shoulders of one man, the manager. A football manager is expected to be a master of tactics, a motivational dressing room speaker, a media communications expert, a scout and pretty much guru of everything.
None of them are good at all of this. As a consequence, clubs invest vast proportions of turnover on player wages and transfers, with haphazard diligence being carried out. The man ultimately responsible for approving this spend is more likely to be a shouty media darling, spending an average of 2.5 years at the club, than someone who has experience of long-term strategic planning.
Cortese figured that what he really needed in a manager was a tactical head, someone who could run a technical team, consulting with scouts, coaches, nutritionists and fitness trainers, and come up with what American football teams call a playbook. You want to play at Old Trafford? This is what worked when small teams visited the Bernabeu last season. Playing teams’ taller/faster/luckier with referees than you? You’ve got to see how these guys are leveling the playing field in Uruguay.
Football clubs need their manager to be Master of Tactics, and if they can concentrate him on this, they’re doing better than 90% of clubs in the game. They don’t need someone ‘connected’ to agents in value markets, this attribute can be recruited easily. They don’t need a good media talker. Despite being able to speak English, Pochettino gives press conferences through an interpreter. Yet the fans love him!
Clubs don’t need someone to play to the galleries, or someone with the ability to induce affinity from his public, most of the time results will keep (most) fans onside.
With his technically-proficient and happy-to-be-working-anywhere manager installed, Cortese had all operations working as he wanted, including the inordinately expensive recruitment process. Sacking a good and successful manager in Atkins was the most ballsy and innovative thing to happen in English football in decades, but he was operating in an industry which is the biggest financial basket case in sport. So, despite his clarity of vision, the Southampton gig was never going to last.
Today’s newspapers predict a mass exodus as Pochettino and Southampton’s gifted players head for the exit, good news for Joos and Danny, perhaps, but you feel for the beleaguered fans, who were shown a glimpse of how things should be done, but for years will wonder, what could have been?
The rest of us can ponder the opportunity available due to entrenched inefficiencies in football.
“You should always have pressure on you”, Stefan Johansen, 15 January 2014. I like this guy already.
Last shout for North America based Celtic fans for the Feile, which starts in Philidelphia tomorrow. Full details of the events can be found here. it’s bound to be a great weekend so get along if you can.
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arrived at my workplace just outside Kilwinning this morning ,with a spring in my step. Opened up the office then went to check on the ground staff to see what they were up to.
How strange no DR or Sun on the howff table and nobody seems to want to talk about football …..ah well get yer fingers oot yer bahookies and got with some work then. :-)
TBJ
I really need to be heading, I will drop down to see your wee pal :-)
Hail Hail
Acgr
Fat ally has had enough cuts to deal with ..its left him pastey faced .. or pastry faced ;)
Cowiebhoy
He might be getting other bad news today. .. be gentle
A ceiler.gonof rust
It’s just for my eyes only as I said, it’s not 100% , as I was just adding and subtracting who was and who wasent posting, and guess Whois name popped up? Paul67 , lol, so it has it’s flaws, then again? Hehehe.
Hilarious comment from dr comments sec.tion
Jackson…”what are the chances of administration I I”
Wallace…”how can a club that has been liquidated go back into administration”
Hahahaha
Ah td67 so you are managing to sort people by their posting habits. Wow!
Cowie,
Sell on fees are usually on the profit made.
http://t.co/cnxn1DvEpH
Looks familiar bhoys ?
Neganon2
Just a little pass time I took up for some fun, surely your not fishing for names?
Td67
And if by magic…….
;)
FourGreenFields
Not sure how the sell on clause would be sliced up but Jelavic wasn’t one who didn’t TUPE over. He was sold in the January window before all the TUPING stuff started.
Tony
I’m sure there are posters who do not care a jot for them and just scroll by when they are the main topic. There are definitely posters who you only see when we lose which I think is strange.
Tony Donnelly67
Hardly been on since New Year. Honest, I’m no a Hun!
Jimbo67 supporting Oscar Knox
Same sheet, diff. A-hole
!!bada bing!!
09:46 on 17 January, 2014
http://t.co/cnxn1DvEpH
Looks familiar bhoys ?
Tony I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear I couldn’t care less. It’s a shame you spend your time trying to ostracise your fellow supporters but each to their own….
Jimbo67 <———- scratched off the list, as I said it's not 100% , hehehehehe .
Neganon
If you don’t care less then just scroll by my man no problem, surely you wouldent deny an old man some fun, it’s called havin a laugh, Jesus h, lighten up man, crack the enamel SMILE , the Huns are going bust AGAIN, but you prob not interested in that, ok start a blog on PL or the BOARD, ;))
If Sevco couldn’t get money for Naibalance and others who stayed with the club to the death can someone please explain to me how they would be due money for Jellyfish?
LB
I’m assuming you meant “our fellow supporters”?
neganon2
09:54 on 17 January, 2014
Tony I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear I couldn’t care less. It’s a shame you spend your time trying to ostracise your fellow supporters but each to their own….
I’m a bit late to this so excuse me.
Is it officials or fans who are claiming they are due money?
I’d be surprised if any sell on clause was added. I was lead to believe Everton were the team of choice as they paid in full.
I’m heartened by the comments from Mr. Wallace that Admin is unlikely for Sevco. If that is true, then it means he wants to take the long/hard road. This will mean cutting costs in various parts of the organisation. While in some areas this will be straightforward, the trickiest part is player contracts. If a reduction in player wage costs cannot be agreed then some players will have to go. The window closes on 1 February – so the next 2 weeks will be interesting. Either way, the best possible outcome for the huns is years of misery. The cherry on top of the icing on top of the cake is that Salary McCoist is the guy who has been key to this all along. He :
– Brought in a shedloadof players on incredible wages
– Created a bloated squad, most of whom have played only occasionally
– Negotiated a massive salary for himself (more than some EPL managers!)
– Bought shares at 1p along with the rest of the spivs – which gives you the measure of a “Real Rangers Man” (RRM)
In addition to all of this, it was his incompetence in the first place that led to the last club going moobs up. And still, their fans talk of another RRM or glib, shameless liar with deep pockets coming to bail them out. There may be no end to this opera….
Geordie munroe
This one is as clear as mud, I can’t work it out, and it seems there is nothing concrete to say what’s right one way or the other, YET.
Nayknow 10:09
Bang on mate, bang on,.
Read that post and weep lurking Huns.
The view from the RIFC Shares Discussion Board this morning:
” But the fans will not blame the players, they will blame the board. You do not have to be a financial wizard to realise that a playing wage budget of just 30% on a turnover of around £30M should be perfectly sustainable. This episode has once again been very poorly handled, firstly the board should have put in place a sizeable reduction in corporate and management remunerations and then approached the higher earners showing they had done their bit before asking the players to do their bit. You can hardly blame guys like Lewis Macloed on £800pw who is doing more than any board member to keep money flowing into the club, to consider a pay cut when the spivs are taking no hits and expensive duds earning 6x his salary are nothing more than bench warmers.”
TD67- not me :-)
Dilemma for tomorrow, missus might be getting out of hospital, I says we have a game tomorrow, she’s says that’s ok you take the bhoy to the game, my mum will pick me up… Can’t tell if she’s serious or not…
HH
Ps. I think Stefan should play at some point tomorrow….
TD
Ive got loads of cqn witnesses that im no a hun… but mibbees.. just mibbees they are all long term hundercover agents too and our masonic ludge came up with this brrrrrillliant plan to fek the taigs by buying season tickets .. shirts. . Scarves .. hats.. flegs etc so we could sneak under the radar.
We could not see any flaw in that plan so the mighty gers would thrive while the feen yins crashed and burned financially;))))))
Gourock
Your either married to a saint.. or your days are numbered :)
TONYDONNELLY
Compiling lists is for huns,I thought you knew that!
And for people who joooooost canny wait for the pub to open,of course. You can make a start there on Brahms too….
Which is my activity of choice today,btw. Mind was made up when next door got his drill and sander out again. At 8am. I reckon I might inadvertently leave my music blaring when I leave for work at midnight tonight.
Bmcuw
When I worked nights I had a very inconsiderate neighbour. .. smiling here cos I kept forgetting to put my music off when I left for work at night
Gourock
Pamper her and rely on CQN updates – maybe I’m just a coward!
NatKnow @ 10.09
I’m not sure I agree with your scorning of Ally McCoist. I mean this is the Rangers-mad, true-blue guy who, since taking over the full-time managers job at the beginning of season 2012-2013 has entered/completed 10 competitionms and won the grand total of ONE of them (last year’s fourth tier League competition). The 10th. and latest one lost was of course his exiting of this season’s League Cup to the mighty East Stirling, but he will, perhaps, double his total; this season if he manages to get the club to the end of the campaign and wins the third tier league with his full-time squad gubbing the rest of the part-timers.
Such a man is not to be mocked, in my opinion.
Don’t quite know what happened with Jellyfish at Neverton but his proficiency in front goal certainly follows a pattern at his last 3 clubs.Rapid Cheating Bassas,Deadclub Cheating Bassas and Neverton.
Will check his stats later to try and find a possible betting angle on him when he starts to play for Hull Tigers….lol….wtf is that all about?
Anyway,I digress…….I think he has a pattern of scoring very regularly at the start of his tenure at any club then this fades away almost to the levels of a Celtic striker.
Might be worth a few punts on him as first Goalscorer in Hull matches for next couple of months at least….Cash in….then desert him when ahead…..hmmmmm
tonydonnelly67
09:28 on 17 January, 2014
Your comments intrigue me because I’ve always wondered how many posters use this site. What’s your guess from your spreadsheet?
Morning All,
Been offline for a couple of days. Have I missed anything?
Two years down the line and three of the main players in the great Sevco scandal remain free of msm criticism.
1. Murray, ultimately responsible for the whole shabang.
2. Walt, the man who spent the money they couldnt afford, then stuck his snout in the trough to cream 50k a year for turning up at games.
3. Coisty, another with megasnout in trough, already a multi-millionaire alone form his tv career, but really needing an EPL wage to manage in SPFL3. Kicked started the downfall by getting bumped out of 2 Euro trophies in the space of 4 weeks.
But no…its all the fault of Green, Whyte, Mather, Ahmed, Stockbridge, The Krays, Johnston, Lloyds tsb, Doncaster, Reagan, Lawwell etc etc.
Oh dear my list is getting smaller, I think I may have been a little hastie with some non de plumes, but then at the same time I added one I had missed, so it kind of a works ;))
Some FFin’ reaction to the Wallace Q&A:
“This doesn’t worry me too much. All he’s trying to do is get costs down. He’s put out the feelers to the players about a possible wage cut, they rejected it.
There’s obviously been a big downturn in revenue because we’re no longer in the top division.
I saw at the East Fife game advertising on the electronic billboards for ‘Fat Bhudda Clothing’
No disrespect to that shop, but surely Rangers should be able to generate higher revenue streams than that.”
——
“I find it difficult to take that Keith Jackson is fighting our corner against some idiot who cannot see how badly he is insulting our intelligence.”
——
“But if you read the above, you could assume that only a boardroom massaker would have satisfied some FFers”