Understanding the Role of the Football Manager in Britain and Ireland: A Weberian Approach

Abstract

Using semi-structured tape-recorded interviews with twenty-two players and eighteen managers, this paper utilizes the work of Max Weber in exploring the role of the manager in professional football (soccer). More specifically, Weber's writings on legitimate authority are used to explore traditional aspects of the role of the contemporary football manager. The findings highlight the lack of formal management training and the widespread assumption within football that previous playing experience is sufficient preparation for entry into management. While many aspects of the management of football clubs have involved increasing professionalization and bureaucratization, the role of the manager has proved remarkably resistant to these processes. The authority of the football manager continues to be based on traditional forms of authoritarianism and this allows managers an unusually high degree of autonomy in defining their own role and places few constraints on the appointment of their support staff.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper and also the editors of this special issue of the ESMQ for their advice and support.

Notes

1. One manifestation of this lag was that, by 2000, whereas in France there were 17,000 UEFA qualified coaches and in Germany there were 53,000, there were only 1,000 in England (Carter, 2006, pp. 127–128).

2. Three of the four backroom staff that the manager brought to the club were former playing colleagues of the manager.