It’s a good thing that Alan Shearer can read a football match, because judging from the comments he made on Five Live tonight around 9.15pm, he can’t read between the lines of a corporate statement.
Believing in the idea that Capello, as Shearer repeatedly suggested, somehow ‘doesn’t care enough’ (and is therefore able to walk away three months before the start of a major tournament) just betrays a failure to understand that when it comes to it, he’s gone against his will. While he has technically ‘resigned’, to all intents and purposes he’s been pushed out. Or fired, if you want.
The clue to this being the case is in the absence of any expression, in the FA statement, of regret about his departure. Had he genuinely resigned, then without any question the FA would have said that they accepted his resignation ‘with regret’ (or similar). In fact, what they need is for him to go, but for people to believe – a la Shearer – that it was all Fabio’s choice. It wouldn’t serve to have someone who is potentially key to the successful outcome of a campaign which finishes in three months seen to have been kicked out.
That it needs to be painted that way will be deemed better for Capello as well, since it’s nicer to say that you quit than that you were kicked out. But in reality, by failing to consult him on the John Terry decision, the FA had made his position untenable. As became clear from his subsequent television interview, he was totally emasculated – a fact which was lost neither on him, nor the FA. And while they might have been able to point to a clause in his contract which showed that they have the ultimate over-ride for decisions, they would not have wanted to get into a debate about unfair dismissal. The result was that they came to a compromise agreement, and in exchange for whatever payout is now being (or maybe has already been) discussed between lawyers, Capello will have had to say that he has decided to go.
Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing clearly depends on what you thought of him as a manager, but for anyone to suggest that he’s gone because he doesn’t care is just daft. But it’s also profoundly depressing, because it will add to the clamour (viz Wayne Rooney’s tweets) that the next manager has to be English, as if by sharing the side’s nationality, it means that he’ll care more. Apparently, the need for such affiliation by birth makes no difference at a local level – a Scot can care about a city as much as a Scouser or a Mancunian, it would seem – but when it comes to coaching England, apparently only Englishmen need apply.
This sort of thinking makes me weep – and not just because it means that the names mooted to take over (even for the short term) therefore include Stuart Pearce. It’s because, surely, the objective has to be to get the person who is best for the job (which is to deliver an international trophy with the best English players available). If that ends up by coincidence being an Englishman (and in Harry Redknapp, it may well be) then brilliant for us all; but though Pearce may, in the eyes of some, lead the young English crop, there surely can’t be anyone in the country who genuinely believes that, passionate player though he was, he can possibly be thought of in the top rank of managers.
No other sport has this obsession with the idea that the national team’s coach has to be English. No-one’s batted an eyelid that Andy Murray’s hired a Czech; the Great Britain rowing team has a record envied by the world over the last 20 years, under the leadership of a German; English cricket went from bottom of the world rankings to second under a Zimbabwean. Why should football have to have this obsession with nationality, if not because, while tying itself in knots recently about whether an uncomfortable faction within it might be racist, the sport has missed the extent to which it is xenophobic?
Mark, totally agree with your thoughts on accusing Capello of not caring. It’s nonsense.
But it doesn’t follow that wanting the next England manager to be English is necessarily a sign of xenophobia or that you think only an Englishman could care enough.
I want the next England manager to be English purely because of the spirit of international representative sport. No national side should have foreign players or a foreign manager. It’s a form of cheating – totally against the spirit of what it is that draws us into watching sporting clashes between nations.
The beauty of the great national teams isn’t simply that they are good at football but that their unique national culture can somehow be discerned in their play.
It isn’t small-minded, bigoted or prejudicial — in fact , it’s about celebrating those differences.
Maybe I’m being fanciful but the joy of watching Brazil (even the below-par recent performances) is to see that fascinating, diverse, exotic country expressed on the pitch by those canary-yellow shirts. I think it would be diluted by having a non-Brazilian manager. Think of the current Spain side, Cruyff’s Dutch side in the 70s, the Magnificent Magyars.
Club football is a different matter — long ago the link between place name and playing staff disappeared. I am all for the free movement of ideas, people and capital and the UK as a whole (and the domestic English football leagues) are better for it.
I don’t dispute that the opposition to a non-English manager can be expressed in distasteful and xenophobic ways — but I hope you see that a desire to see an Englishman in charge of England is not always the hope of a Little Englander.
Absolutely I can: I have a desire to see an Englishman in charge of England, but that’s not the same as saying that “the next manager has to be English”, as if that is the first of the criteria, and once the shortlist is drawn up from it, a selection can be made. The next manager has to be the best man for the job – and the hope has to be that that man is English, because it will mean we’re producing the best in the world.
I wouldn’t say it’s cheating, because there isn’t a rule that says the manager or coach has to be the side’s nationality: it says that the players must be. We export coaches and we import coaches, in many other sports. This debate never happens in any other sport than football, to my knowledge; and IMO that’s because of the existence, not to say dominance (although clearly not in numerical terms), of a distasteful, xenophobic, faction in football…
I think our difference comes from that undefinable word “spirit”. What I feel is within the spirit of international sport is different to your’s. I think the coach is an important part of the setup of a team and it should be the first criteria for any national team (even if the laws don’t demand it).
I don’t blame the FA for looking at all eligible candidates — irrespective of nationality. They are merely abiding by the rules as laid out as they also do not share my view on what sport is about at international level.
I certainly wouldn’t disagree with you that in English football there is a regrettable xenophobia. I hope I can maintain my position without being thought xenophobic.
Thanks for the response.
The irrational( i.e. in contrast to posts above)fear and contempt of all that is foreign, expressed by many re the appointment of the new National Manager reflects the uphill struggle faced by gambling operators on a daily basis. The current assumption that UK regulation somehow offers better protection than that afforded by “Johnny Foreigner” and the similar mantras echoed by numerous monopolies in Europe is largely based on the same “an English Manger will care more” thesis.
I think if you have two equally matched candidates such as a Harry Redknapp and a Rafa Benitez, you should favour the English candidate for all the reasons already made. However if a Jose Mourinho or Gus Hiddink throw their hat into the ring……then forget about it as it is a no brainer!
A wonderful thing, the English language. Capable of being both surgically precise and engagingly ambiguous.
I can see no ambiguity in both parties to an incident stating that one of them resigned, even if we suspect that their real actions may be otherwise. Capello “technically” resigned. Redknapp was “technically” let off tax evasion. The qualifying term matters not one bit and should not be used: he resigned, and he was acquitted. Unless someone wants to prove otherwise.
Shearer might be ignorant and naive, but he should not be criticised for taking at face value an unambiguous statement which a corporate spin doctor would desperately, but unjustifiably, like people to view as nuanced. He would certainly not be alone in having no time for an attempt at such have-your-cake-and-eat-it doublespeak.
The real scandal will presumably be if Capello gets a massive pay off after “resigning”. That sort of behaviour might be part of what is deemed acceptable in the corporate world, too. But it shouldn’t be.
Simon Rowlands
It’s not at all that I would “desperately, but unjustifiably, like people to view [it] as nuanced”. Nor has it anything to do with me being a ‘corporate spin doctor’: it is a legal issue, not a corporate issue. It just happens that the clue is in the wording of the statement.
The ‘have your cake and eat it’ double speak is not Capello’s. Capello has been forced into a situation which he is then being told demonstrates that he is not passionate/leaves people in the lurch/walks away from a commitment, etc. I think that’s harsh and I don’t think it’s fair for people to criticise him for something that it seems clear was not in his control.
As to his “massive pay-off”: he will get what is due to him under his contract as if he had stayed in the job. That is only right. He didn’t leave the job of his own accord and he didn’t do anything wrong other than try to carry on dong the job, which his bosses made it impossible for him to do. He had an expectation that he would continue to be paid until his contract ran out, or he did something which breached it. He also had a fair expectation that he would be able to continue to the best of his ability without emasculation. When that no longer proved possible as a result of external circumstances, he left. This is totally standard practice across commercial contracts everywhere – from the lowest level of the employment ladder to the highest.
The legal requirement imposed on him to ensure that he gets the deal owed to him will be that he doesn’t stray from the script he has been given, and of course he will stick to that because he would otherwise lose the money due to him under his contract (the payment of which will almost certainly be deferred). But the corollary is that people inevitably make assumptions about his passion and his commitment which in my view are unfair on him.
When I left my last job, I was similarly wrapped up in legal requirements which led to people making all sorts of suggestions about why I had left which I was unable to defend. I can tell you it wasn’t fun, and that was when they were just said to me in private rather than plastered all over the media.
For the sake of clarity – and in order to avoid unnecessary ambiguity
– the remarks about corporate doublespeak and spinning in the above were not directed specifically at you.
One consequence of Capello and the FA hiding behind a shared statement that the former “resigned” – and by “sticking to the script” thereafter – is that they invite precisely the interpretation made by Shearer, and by many others.
That is also part of “the deal”. Shearer may well be doing it naively – or he may even be doing it quite knowingly – but he is justified in taking them at their word. That’s what people tend to do, outside the corporate world at least.
Simon Rowlands
Yes, taking the resignation at its word and reporting it as a resignation accordingly, I agree. I am not suggesting that they run the headline, “Capello fired”. In my view it should not extend to questioning the man’s commitment and accusing him of leaving the country in the lurch, both of which strike me as personal comments on a man caught in a professional trap, and therefore constitute playing the man and not the ball. He hasn’t left anyone anywhere: he’s been told to go, and it was not in his control for it to happen otherwise.
By the by, I don’t actually like Fabio Capello as a manager and can’t understand how we could have someone who doesn’t even speak English doing the job in the first place, especially on that salary. But that was an issue for when he started, and how he was managed by his bosses going forward. It doesn’t mean that he should be kicked on the way out.
Capello’s payoff is (understandably) more important to him than is his reputation with those who (again, understandably) view his “resigning” a few months before a major tournament as a selfish and wilful act.
That was his choice, and he will live with the consequences, both positive and negative.
He didn’t have to act that way: any sympathy for the various parties (including Shearer) should be viewed in that context.
True. But I don’t know (m)any who would cede that sort of a contractual payment when they were just doing their job and got hit from left field. And it’s still playing the man not the ball.