Managerial Change in the English Premier League
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive You're getting sacked in the morning: managerial change in the English Premier League FLINT, Stuart, PLUMLEY, Daniel James and WILSON, Robert Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/9944/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version FLINT, Stuart, PLUMLEY, Daniel James and WILSON, Robert (2016). You're getting sacked in the morning: managerial change in the English Premier League. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 34 (2), 223-235. Repository use policy Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in SHURA to facilitate their private study or for non- commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk Abstract Purpose: This paper aims to highlight and encourage consideration of the ethical and in some instances legal implications of managerial change in the EPL which often gets overlooked and sidestepped by clubs. Design/methodology/approach: Extant literature relating to managerial change is identified and discussed to provide the foundations of the discussion of whether managerial change in the EPL which is primarily focused on performance outcome, is neglecting ethical and legal issues. Findings: The loophole that exists in the Employment Rights Act (1996) allows clubs to instantly dismiss a manager and consequently not see out their notice period as agreed in their contract or the statutory notice period. Whilst legally clubs are at will to act in this manner, the instability of EPL management evident today appears to have taken away the rights of an employee. Practical implications: Greater consideration of the current managerial change practices in EPL from an ethical and legal perspective appears warranted. The incomparable rights that a player and a manger have relating to their tenure at a club seem somewhat unfair. Originality/value: Presents thought-provoking information relating to managerial change in the EPL which appears to have been overlooked in the literature to date which primarily focuses on the impact of change on performance. Keywords: Managerial Change, English Premier League, employment rights Paper type: Viewpoint 1 Introduction The apparently unique nature of professional team sports and leagues dictates that individual teams, while seeking a dominant position in a winner-takes-all scenario, require competitors to provide opposition, entertainment and commercial possibility (Williams, 2012). For this reason, professional sports can be lucrative business, presenting many opportunities for revenue generation (Madichie, 2009). However, with rising revenues come rising costs for player recruitment and salaries and an increase in pressure to deliver results with a degree of immediacy. Professional sport is littered with examples of successful and long-serving managers. Fred Everiss, responsible for West Bromwich Albion (UK) coached his team over 46 years (1902– 1948) without any interruption. Sir Alex Ferguson, by many the most successful manager in the modern footballing era, was in charge of Manchester United for 26 years before taking the decision to retire, while others, Alan Curbishley at Charlton Athletic (15 years) and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal (18 years) have been appointed for similar periods. In other professional sports tenure seems to be much shorter. In English Rugby Union, Jim Mallinder, Director of Rugby for Northampton Saints has been in charge for 7 years. However, as indicated by Heuer, Muller, Ruber, Hangemann and Strauss (2011), such loyalty is very unusual in professional team sports. More often than not the tenure of a manager of a professional club is short with action being taken to sack a manager when there have been a string of bad results, or when the 'fans turn' on the clubs hierarchy. Indeed, in relation to the examples from professional football above, even Alan Curbishley was sacked as manager of Charlton Athletic when there was a downturn in results despite him being the club's manager for 15 years. The examples of long-serving managers such as Ferguson and Wenger both occur at clubs that have ultimately been successful during the last two decades. Such success, it can be argued, has made these managers less prone to the pressure of the sack even if results don’t always go their way. Furthermore, Sir Alex Ferguson, clearly one of the exceptions in the world of football managers, left the club on his own terms, retiring in 2013. There is little evidence presently to suggest that football clubs stand by their manager in bad times. In fact, according to many there is an unhealthy churn of managers with sacked managers and coaches hired by competitors who have dismissed their own coach in order to appoint someone else (e.g. Audas, Dobson and Goddard, 2002; Dobson and Goddard, 2011; Flint, Plumley and Wilson, 2014; Koning, 2003). 2 By way of an example we can point to Andre Villas-Boas’ sacking by Chelsea after less than a year in charge at Stamford Bridge. The 34-year-old manager was sacked for results and performances not being good enough and showing no signs of improvement. He later moved to Tottenham Hotspur where he lasted 16 months before his contract was terminated. In both cases, clubs replaced the manager with interim appointments who were also fired. This volatile approach to the hiring and firing of club managers and head coaches has led to media outlets and pundits fashioning the phrase regarding a “Premier League sack race”. The primary focuses of previous research examining the impacts of managerial change in football are performance and finance (e.g., Flint et al., 2014). Arguably, this has occurred due to the globalisation and 'financial muscle' and increasing brand value of the EPL and its clubs which has enabled multi-billion pound television rights to be sold and multi-million pound sponsorship deals to be signed (Madichie, 2009; Ratten, 2011a, Ratten and Ratten, 2011). The unique brand image that clubs from the EPL have been able to build following on-field success and attractive football (e.g. Manchester United's unprecedented 13 EPL titles between 1992 and 2013) has delivered new commercial opportunities that are now are inextricably linked to playing performance and by definition the role of the football manager. Any reduction in on-pitch performance can damage a football club's brand and consequently its financial security. The selection of the right manager therefore extends beyond the management of 11 players in the modern day game to a range of other management functions. As Ferrand and Pages (1999) indicate, sport clubs are becoming more preoccupied with their image. There is an increasing recognition that image has the power to influence behaviours of all those involved with a sport organisation, its members, fans, journalists, sponsors and so on. This increases the pressure on clubs to change their manager, often for reasons other than on- pitch performance. To our knowledge no research to date has considered the ethical implications that warrant attention given the importance of such decisions. The purpose of this article is to highlight that the ethics of managerial change in the EPL is often overlooked and in some cases it may be argued that clubs are acting in an unethical manner, breaching contract agreements and dismissing a manger unfairly. Clubs appear to be able to sidestep this law outlined in the Employment Rights Act (1996) by financially agreeing for a manager to leave the club without working their notice. The article is put forward as a viewpoint paper and is similar in structure and layout to other viewpoint papers in the field of sport business management (e.g. 3 Haskins, 2013). Three key factors prompt this article; managerial churn in the English Premier League, controllable and uncontrollable factors that professional football managers face, and employee dismissal legislation in the United Kingdom (UK). In business, the majority of organisations will encounter changes in leadership at some point in time. Often, as stated by Tena and Forrest (2007) there is a natural time for a change. For example, following an unsuccessful election campaign a political party may change their leader, whilst in a business setting leadership may be changed due to the expiration of a Chief Executive Officer's (CEO) contract or when that person reaches a certain age. In a professional sport team, the most logical time for a change would appear to be at the end of a season. However, this does not appear to be the approach taken by professional football clubs and, in any case, there are a number of differences between the term leader and manager in a professional sporting context as described by Flint et al. (2014). For example, in a professional football club, the leader will be the owner or the chairman, responsible for making decisions based on the overall strategic direction of the club and a number of off-field performance indicators whereas the manager will be responsible for the on-pitch performance of the players (Flint et al., 2014). The role of the manager is always thought to be that of formulating the purpose (visions, aims, goals, objectives, performance targets) of the organisation and controlling its movement into the future (Stacey, 2003). It is recognised that this cannot always be perfectly achieved but it is thought that managers need to be in control, to design and use systems that ultimately lead to the aims, goals and objectives being achieved (Stacey, 2003).