All you need is trust, but you are not going to get it in writing Rafa
By Martin Samuel
Last updated at 2:32 AM on 21st January 2009
To stay at Liverpool, Rafael Benitez, the manager, does not require a team of lawyers working overtime to insert unworkable clauses into his new contract.
He needs something altogether more decent, simple and old fashioned. Trust.
A mutually sincere relationship between a senior employee and his employers is what separates Benitez from Mr. Ferguson at Manchester United, Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, Martin O’Neill at Aston Villa, even David Moyes at Everton.
Rafa Benitez
You¿ll never walk alone? Benitez does not have the bond with his employers that his rival managers have
Benitez has an issue with Rick Parry, his chief executive, whereas by comparison Ferguson has nothing but praise for Parry’s equivalent at Manchester United, David Gill, describing him in an interview with GQ magazine as the best thing to happen to the club recently.
Benitez stops short of wishing Parry gone, but his comradeship with co-owner Tom Hicks, who has also moved against Parry, would seem to be based on the old adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Observed as a family unit, Liverpool are strange and dysfunctional.
The most successful of Benitez’s contemporaries have working relationships built on two central tenets. The first is that the manager is the best judge of what a football club needs in the transfer market, the second is that the senior executives will, within reason, at all times respect this and attempt to deliver his vision.
Crucially, however, such arrangements are not put in writing. They cannot be. To embrace this ideal in a way that was legally binding would make an employee more powerful than his employer.
Ferguson is not given the power to dictate transfer policy at Old Trafford; instead he accepts assurances that this is the way it will be.
Other professions will recognise this arrangement. A newspaper columnist, for instance, writes on the understanding that he is at liberty to express individual opinions, without interference. Yet, not one will have a contract that says ‘write what you like’; in black and white a publisher will always reserve the management’s right to edit or spike copy.
This protects the newspaper against extremity, inaccuracy, vanity or a bloke just trying to work his ticket. Press freedom exists on trust.
Mr. Ferguson and David Gill
Full of praise: Manchester United manager Mr. Ferguson described chief executive David Gill as the best thing to have happened to the football club
The best football clubs also utilise this dynamic. Gill knows that Ferguson’s judgment has brought success; Ferguson understands the Glazer family must have the final word on major expenditure. The manager trusts that they will listen to his recommendations; the owners trust he knows what he is doing.
The problem at Liverpool would appear to be that nobody trusts anybody, which is why Manchester United were prepared to pay above what was expected for Michael Carrick of Tottenham Hotspur, and Liverpool vetoed Benitez’s interest in Gareth Barry of Aston Villa, against his wishes.
To recap, Parry and Benitez are clearly at loggerheads, as are Liverpool’s owners, Hicks and George Gillett. Parry and Hicks are opposed, too. Against this backdrop of constant battling are skirmishes; over Barry not coming, Daniel Agger possibly going and, most damagingly of all, around Benitez’s contract. Fernando Torres, Liverpool’s record signing, said at the weekend that as many as six players would consider their options if Benitez left, so this current dispute must be taken seriously.
The downside of employing a leading coach from abroad is that the influence of a strong individual tends to alter the culture of a club. So Liverpool is now a Spanish enclave on the Irish Sea and the consequences of Benitez walking would outstrip, for instance, the departure of Moyes at Everton.
Moyes has been consistent, relatively successful and is very well respected, but has not presided over what amounts to regime change. Everton, as of January 21, 2009, still resemble Everton of March 14, 2002, when Moyes took over, except better. Not so Liverpool.
Losing Rafa would mean abandoning the Rafalution and Liverpool would move, in an instant, from a point where the mission is on the point of accomplishment to one where it is starting again from scratch. In the circumstances, then, it should be imperative to keep him: but not at any cost.
What Benitez wants is basically out of the question. He cannot have total control of the transfer budget, because it is not his budget. There is mitigation and sympathy for Benitez but it is too simplistic to view this merely as the fall-out from the failure to sign Barry last summer. This is about what happens if trust is missing from a relationship.
It was not that Liverpool could not afford Barry, or did not want Barry, it was that they did not trust Benitez sufficiently to make the call.
He thought the player was worth £18million, his employers did not, and they did not satisfactorily support his expertise to allow him final say. Now Benitez wishes to circumvent this process with clauses in his contract, but if Liverpool did not trust him then, why would they trust him now, and why would they legally surrender executive veto?
Would Barry’s £18m fee have been too much for Manchester United or Arsenal had the manager made his case? The likely answer is no. Yet, Ferguson and Wenger do not possess total control over transfers, either. They merely have a board of directors who respect their opinion.
If Benitez felt that same love, none of this would have happened. David Dein, the former vice-chairman of Arsenal, is feted for the way he managed Wenger during his Highbury days but, beyond the initial appointment — which was inspired — how hard can it have been?
A pre-recorded tape message could have accomplished much the same (and been relied upon not to sell its shares to Alisher Usmanov) throughout those years. In the event of a difficult transfer decision, the board would consult its trusty Grundig Four Track Deluxe Model TK 23L, press play and hear what it had to say. A deep voice would then intone: ‘Whatever the French bloke wants, say yes.’ Job done, gentlemen, meeting adjourned, anyone fancy a pint?
The Glazers have clearly reached the same conclusion about Ferguson, Randy Lerner, the Aston Villa owner, about O’Neill, too. It helps, though, if manager and owner are simpatico. Wenger, for some reason, has an aversion to spending money, and that policy will find favour with any board.
Ferguson is always willing to drop a million or 30 in the transfer market, but his way also wins trophies and he was very supportive of the Glazer takeover from the start, quickly learning the value of private ownership when United went out of the Champions League at the group stage against Benfica, and no questions were asked or profits warnings hastily issued to the City.
O’Neill and Lerner have been on the same wavelength from day one in a way that must make Mark Hughes, the manager of Manchester City, green (or greyer) with envy.
Then there is Benitez who should, with his track record, have a parallel relationship but does not because, privately, some at the club still view him as a thinking man’s Harry Redknapp and flag up a quite frantic turnover of playing staff as evidence.
In this game of point-counterpoint, Benitez will then refer cynics to the squad he inherited and ask what else was he meant to do. And on it goes.
The stance of the club is unhelpful because the transfer market has never been an exact science and even the greatest managers make mistakes. Benitez would have paid £18m for Barry with no guarantees, yes, but the executive who killed that deal but agreed Robbie Keane was value for money at £20m from Tottenham is hardly looking the sharpest tool in the box, either.
The difference is that few depict the signing of Keane as a boardroom blunder. He is the mistake of Benitez alone. Maybe shouldering the blame has driven the manager to demand full responsibility.
Parry’s view is that every company has a chain of accountability and in football one of the links is between manager and chief executive. Looked at coldly, he is right. What he misses is the human touch, the bond that unites a successful club and is currently undermining Liverpool.
Parry found the right manager in Benitez, which is half of the job, but what remains is to put faith in him.
‘To trust people is a luxury which only the wealthy can indulge,’ wrote E.M. Forster. Liverpool would recognise the sentiment, but whether they can afford not to trust Benitez is a more pressing question. And if they do, how to demonstrate this without putting it in writing?
It has been, as many observers have suggested, a great week for English football. We will not, after all, have the privilege of watching Kaka, one of the most sublimely gifted players in the world in the Premier League this season.
For his £45, the man in the street will instead pay to see the thoroughly deserving Craig Bellamy and will surely consider this money well spent.
Bellamy recently played a whole 22 matches for West Ham United before demanding a transfer, and is known for his loyalty and stable influence in the dressing room.
In other good news, the real world of mediocrity as espoused by Arsene Wenger will go further unchallenged, and if he can just squirrel his Arsenal team into fourth place ahead of Aston Villa, UEFA will present him with another cheque for a minimum of £30million to preserve this cosy status quo.
A little dream has been crushed and Manchester City supporters have been slapped down, humiliated, and firmly reminded not to have ideas above their station.
The club may lose Robinho, too, and how pleased we will all be to see the back of him, with his overrated qualities such as skill and talent. That is certainly not for the likes of us; well, not for the likes of City, anyway, whose lot is to always be mocked, skint and second-best, because that is what is healthiest for our game.
But, most of all, now we can get on with building all those schools and hospitals that were going by the wayside because Sheik Mansour was spending £100m on a footballer. Sorry? But I thought ...
