It has been a weekend of woe for those who put themselves forward as managers in the sporting world.
On Friday night The Mayo GAA County Board released a short statement which confirmed the resignation of Pat Holmes and Noel Connelly as managers of the senior football team despite their having led the county to come closer than any other to derailing Dublin in the All Ireland.
The following day rumours flew that Galway’s hurlers were insisting that the reappointment of their senior manager Anthony Cunningham be rescinded and that he had ‘lost the dressing room.’
Reviewing his position
On Sunday then as England Rugby Manager Stuart Lancaster said he was reviewing his position after leading England into the history books as the most underperforming host nation in Rugby World Cup history.
Reviews were not on the agenda though for Dick Advocaat, sacked as manager of Sunderland in the Premier League, and Brendan Rogers, similarly dumped as manager of Liverpool.
Rumour is a great thing to raise fans temperature. Advocaat was thought to have already left his apartment and had his bags packed literally as well as metaphorically when he went to see the Sunderland game against West Ham.
In the afternoon the attention switched to Merseyside where reports circulated that Liverpool FC had taken a lease on a very substantial property that would be suitable for a high profile international manager being lined up to replace the Northern Ireland native.
World of difference
There is a world of difference between amateur managers like we have in GAA and in the rarefied world of soccer where it is believed that Chelsea paid Jose Mourinho over €20 million the last time they sacked him.
Compensation for management should always be based on incentive to perform though short term success is often over emphasised and problems stored up for the future.
The sports world is a microcosm of what happens in real life, painted in far more vivid colours. Holmes and Connelly walked because the team they managed fell one point short in a pulsating All Ireland semi final.
Martin Winterkorn on the other hand was the man in charge as Volkswagen were revealed as designing software to cheat emissions tests on their fleet of cars in the United States. The difference in scale between these ‘offences’ is interplanetary yet it was the football managers that ended up going quicker.
Indeed Winterkorn was reported yesterday to be still in a range of senior positions at the German automaker as he decides what to spend his massive pay off on.
Blurred
It’s a funny world where definitions of success and failure are sometimes blurred and sometimes painted in a much sharper focus that can ever really be sustained.
As people those who lead tend to be motivated by the ability to do so at the highest level. In business that leadership is handsomely rewarded, as it is in the highest levels of sport at a professional level. These are leaders that generate massive revenue and that have to carry the can when there is a demand for change, even when that cycle of change seems to accelerate at an ever faster rate.
In the world of the GAA though the compensation is different. Holmes and Connelly have jobs to go back to this morning, and no compensation packages. Thankfully the memory of failure is often swiftly overtaken by the hope of the the future and there will be no shortage of willing candidates ready to try their hardest to bring success.
