Coaching for survival: the hazards of head coach careers in the German ‘Bundesliga’

Abstract

This article analyses how long head coaches survive in the clubs of the first German football league (‘Bundesliga’), where the dismissal of a presumably weak coach is a generally adopted procedure in case of a poor sporting performance of the team. We use duration models for repeated events to accommodate the correlation within individuals. We find that the head coaches of successful teams and those working during the more recent ‘Bosman Effect’ period are more likely to survive in the Bundesliga. Moreover, the head coaches of clubs with relatively high team wage bills are likely to survive for shorter periods of time.

Notes

¹ In 1991/92, when the two best teams from the first division of the former German Democratic Republic (‘Oberliga’) were admitted to the Bundesliga, the number of teams was temporarily increased to 20. After that season, four teams were relegated to division 2 while only two were promoted to division 1, resulting in the well-known size of the league again.

² Otto Rehhagel, currently head coach of the Greek national team, was formerly employed by Kickers Offenbach, Werder Bremen, Borussia Dortmund, Arminia Bielefeld, Fortuna Duesseldorf, Bayern Muenchen and 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Moreover, a number of head coaches had up to six different employers in the first division (Guyla Lorant, Joerg Berger, Rudi Gutendorf, Kuno Kloetzer, Manfred Krafft and Branco Zebec). Some of these coaches have not only been working in the first, but also in the second division. Moreover, some coaches have been working for a team not only once, but have been hired again after a while.