Do managers care about the long term financial future of their clubs?

[Rjk]

15m for berahinio is a good deal. Hogan at Brentford went for not a lot less. McCormack has gone for just under that twice. If Hughes can get the best out of him that'll be a bargain.

The 4.7m that derby paid for Tom ince was questioned by some at the time but now that looks like a steal

[qccfc]

No managers are in control of the finances of their club, and of course they are not concerned about the long term financial situation. All a manger cares about is keeping his job.

He will identify weakness in his squad, his scouts will identify players, and the CEO will negotiate a fee and wages. If this process works correctly he will keep his job, if he doesn't he gets the sack.

[David Vincent]

No managers are in control of the finances of their club, and of course they are not concerned about the long term financial situation. All a manger cares about is keeping his job.

He will identify weakness in his squad, his scouts will identify players, and the CEO will negotiate a fee and wages. If this process works correctly he will keep his job, if he doesn't he gets the sack.

Transfer spending is a very big part of a club's finances and some manager still have control of that spending. For example, I believe only Wenger decides who is bought at Arsenal but you read in the papers about other managers complaining, after they have been sacked, that they had no say in who was sold and bought.

I don't think it has always been, or even is, the case that a manager only cared about keeping his job. If it was like that then a manager would always claim the credit for things that went right and they would blame others for things that went wrong.

[qccfc]

Transfer spending is a very big part of a club's finances and some manager still have control of that spending. For example, I believe only Wenger decides who is bought at Arsenal but you read in the papers about other managers complaining, after they have been sacked, that they had no say in who was sold and bought.

I don't think it has always been, or even is, the case that a manager only cared about keeping his job. If it was like that then a manager would always claim the credit for things that went right and they would blame others for things that went wrong.

All manager decide who is bought and sold, however they do not have their finger on the figures. Wenger will say what players he wants, and the CEO will negotiate the figure. If you put a football manager in charge of the figure it would be too tempting for them to break budgets to get the players they want.

Wenger is a different case because he is a manager that has been given a lot of time, so he can plan long term.

However why would a manager be prudent, knowing that if results are bad he'll have the sack. Then not really benefiting from his prudence.

A manager focuses on keeping his job, because if he does that within the constraints passed down from the financial people, then the club is doing well. Why would a club let a man, who is usually an ex-footballer in charge of a budget.

[David Vincent]

Getting back to to the point about managers not wanting to lose their jobs, I can remember reading in a book called The Armchair Economist that the reason firms pay high salaries to the top managers is so that they are not afraid of taking risks. The author argued that if these managers were paid so little that they were afraid of losing their jobs then they would not take the risky decisions which would lead to big profits for the shareholders. (This book was written before the crash when all this risky behaviour ended up being disastrous.) These firms did not want managers who were afraid of losing their jobs.

In the past I am sure that there were managers who had control over the day to day finances of the club. I can remember reading stories about one famous manager who used to buy players without telling the directors and who used to help himself to gate money from the safe.