Nicola Cortese, Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano are seizing the moment at clubs - MARTIN SAMUEL
Nicola Cortese is the chairman of Southampton. Hold on to that fact because in the age of the owner-manager it is easy to become confused. Cortese has spent the last week holding his club, the club he runs, to ransom.
There have been veiled threats, there have been carefully floated ultimatums, there has been disruption and wild talk of disintegration. Not from his lips, obviously, but informed sources. Nothing was ever denied and in the end, he got what he wanted.
If Cortese were Wayne Rooney or Harry Redknapp, a figure from the sweaty end of football’s market place, he would no doubt have been pilloried. As he wears a suit, his brinkmanship passes without comment.
Meanwhile, over at Manchester City, a rather tawdry smear campaign against Roberto Mancini is being used to realign the position of incoming coach Manuel Pellegrini. The so-called holistic approach is merely just an old-fashioned grab for power by the executives. The owner-manager age is reaching its logical conclusion.
They think they are players, these guys. Literally and metaphorically. It is always about Cortese at Southampton. When he grants an interview he rarely mentions the manager and if he is beginning to talk up the work of Mauricio Pochettino, it is only because his appointment in controversial circumstances was so plainly Cortese’s call that he basks in any reflected glory.
After a week of confusion, Cortese’s decision to stay at Southampton, announced on Saturday, was depicted as having prevented a mass walk-out.
Quite where everyone was going to walk to, considering manager and players are under contract and Cortese doesn’t own a football club, is a mystery. Cortese’s great talent is for spending another man’s fortune. Most owners, from Roman Abramovich to Tony Fernandes, are capable of doing that themselves.
The benefactor at Southampton was the late Markus Liebherr who, having bought the club and employed Cortese as chairman, died in 2011. Southampton is now in the hands of the Liebherr Trust, run by Katharina Liebherr, and she has allowed Cortese to continue with a generous budget.
Here the conflict lies. Cortese is an ambitious man. Ambition costs money in the Premier League. Liebherr Trust money.
Katharina did not appear to share Cortese’s enthusiasm for spending her father’s bequest. So Cortese played up, just as a manager would. Stories began appearing that he would quit.
Then Pochettino said he would go with him. Morgan Schneiderlin spoke for the players, claiming many would consider their future. The fans were certainly on Cortese’s side because fans always want their club to spend.
Yet it is very easy to be big-hearted Charlie with another man’s money. By acting like a manager, Southampton’s chairman only shines light on the real hero here: Katharina Liebherr.
Nobody sings her name, yet what is Cortese without her? He’s a guy playing fantasy football. Where does this owner-manager tendency end? Will chairmen start demanding showdown talks with themselves?
Fans favourite: Roberto Mancini is held in high regard by Manchester City fans despite his sacking by the club
Carlos Tevez says he would love to return to Boca Juniors but Manchester City are pricing him out of the market.
He has one year left on his contract, meaning that in 12 months he could leave for nothing and turn out for the going rate in Argentina.
As just about every move the player has made in his career has led to a financial improvement, however, we shall see.
Telling themselves: back me or I quit? Maybe in times of crisis a chairman will give himself a vote of confidence — and sack himself two days later. We wish.
Yet if Cortese sees himself only as an employee, not the custodian, what happens when Southampton hit that inevitable glass ceiling? Does he agitate for a move to a bigger club, as a manager might? Is Southampton just his stepping stone?
Chelsea are increasingly convinced they will sign Southampton’s most exciting prospect, left back Luke Shaw. Did this week of upheaval play a part? It can hardly have helped, if Shaw was pondering his future, to hear that half the club, from the chairman down, was doing the same.
Yet the owner-manager phenomenon is spreading. It is not just owners who want to run the club these days.
Confused? Luke Shaw (left) has been linked with Chelsea as Southampton manager Mauricio Pochettino said he too would leave the club if Cortese stood downSeizing the moment: Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano (left) are paving the way for Manuel Pellegrini (right)
There is a middle raft of executives — Cortese at Southampton, Daniel Levy at Tottenham Hotspur and the former Barcelona pair Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano freshly installed at Manchester City — who are seizing their moment.
At City, the trashing of Mancini’s reputation — he even took out a full page ad in the Manchester Evening News to thank the fans, the rotter — is merely a smokescreen.
It is being used to usher in a change of approach that will, ostensibly, guard against another tyrannical reign. In reality, Begiristain and Soriano are expanding their empires. Pellegrini will dance to their tune.
There is already talk of Pellegrini grooming Patrick Vieira to be manager, long-term. He hasn’t turned up yet and they are already counting down to when he can go.
Who is Begiristain grooming to be director of football, by the way?
Holistic approach? David Moyes (left) was handed a six-year contract at Manchester United. At Manchester City, there is already murmurs that Pellegrini will groom Patrick Vieira (right) to be his successorIsn’t it strange that, however important these executive roles are made to appear, it is only the manager who must plan to be shunted aside.
The director of football wants to be judged in 10 years; the manager gets 10 games.
David Moyes has been given a six-year contract at Manchester United, Pellegrini is likely to receive one third of that at Manchester City.
Now which club is truly taking a holistic approach?
Had Jonny Wilkinson been playing for Clermont-Auvergne on Saturday they would have won the Heineken Cup.
Instead, his composure helped steer Toulon to victory. His was a real contribution too, not the bit parts played by that other national icon David Beckham in the twilight of his years. Wilkinson lasted every minute as younger men were taken off.
Precision: Jonny Wilkinson helped Toulon to Heineken Cup glory on SaturdayHis presence was considered essential.
If any opportunity exists to include him in the wider touring party for the Lions it should be taken. Not as a starting player, but closing out a game.
Is there really anyone you would rather see standing over that ball?
When my father sold his football programme collection several years ago, the gentleman who bought it had surprising news. Dad was very proud of a complete set of Tottenham Hotspur programmes from 1960-61, the season they won the Double.
He thought Hungary’s visit to England in 1953 might fetch a few quid, too. He was wrong. The big games, England internationals, FA Cup finals, had little scarcity value. Tens of thousands would have been printed, and many kept as souvenirs, it was explained.
The worth, he was told, was in his bizarre one-offs. Obscure games in the Third Division North or South that he had somehow picked up over the years.
Barrow versus Workington. Newport County versus Plymouth Argyle.
As a football mad schoolboy, dad would write off to the secretary of clubs asking for a programme and enclosing a stamped addressed envelope. They usually obliged.
Heroic: Fans hold up a giant copy of the United Review to celebrate their retiring manager Sir Alex FergusonWolverhampton Wanderers — his team — sent him every home programme for five or six consecutive seasons. The good years, too, when Billy Wright was captain and Wolves were at the pinnacle of the English game. Programmes back then were as unique as each club. The print on the pages of Newcastle United’s skinny team sheet was so heavy it seeped through and made it hard to read the names. Arsenal’s was the nearest to modern matchday magazines, glossy and thick, reflecting their wealth.
By contrast, Tottenham’s was just four pages, one sheet folded in half.
There was nothing special about Barrow’s game with Workington, so the few spectators who attended would not have treated any surviving items with great care. Over time, these mementos would be discarded or cleared out in bundles from dusty attics. Dad’s copy could be the only one left of a match between two teams who are now part of football’s ancient history.
It was a true collector’s item.
I mention this only because at Old Trafford last week, fans could be seen placing copies of the United Review from Sir Alex Ferguson’s final Manchester United home game in protective plastic bags, sometimes three or four at a time. Maybe they harboured dreams of making a killing.
United say they printed 70,000 copies and demand has been so high they may authorise a second run. Sotheby’s should not be notified just yet.
However, anyone who has a copy of the programme from the Scottish League Cup, Group 8, Forfar Athletic versus East Stirlingshire on August 10, 1974 (attendance 661), might care to invest in a safe. If it comes signed by a young man called Alex Ferguson, embarking on his very first game as a manager with East Stirling, maybe get a guard dog, too.
AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT...Roy Hodgson met the All-Party Parliamentary Football Group last week. One member — and that word is working on a variety of levels here — asked him why, if he was so committed to youth, he didn’t set an age limit on the England team. Say 25.
To put that into perspective, if this were Hodgson’s policy, Jack Wilshere and Phil Jones would currently be trying to qualify for their last World Cup, while Joe Hart and Ashley Young would be retired.
Going strong: England manager Roy Hodgson met the All-Parliamentary Football GroupYet these are the people who presume to pronounce and pontificate on football, and whose views are taken seriously by gullible elements of the media.
Why are the Football Association letting Hodgson waste time with these clowns? He could talk to plants and get more sense.
Relegation worries
Those who study trends in football have noticed a troubling sequence in the Premier League.Relegation is increasingly linked to attendance figures.
Wigan Athletic’s demotion to the Championship meant that this season two of the three relegated clubs are also in the Premier League’s bottom three average attendances. The other relegated club, Reading, were 17th in that table. Only Swansea challenged the form.
Dejected: Wigan were relegated to the npower Championship after defeat by Arsenal at the EmiratesIt was not always this way. Between 2002-03 and 2008-09, a run of seven seasons, only one team with a bottom three average attendance figure went down — Watford in 2006-07. Yet in the last four seasons, five have dropped: Burnley and Portsmouth in 2009-10, Blackpool in 2010-11 and now Wigan and Queens Park Rangers.
With financial fair play limiting expenditure to turnover, the smallest clubs are not only going to struggle to compete, but also to survive.
If this pattern continues next season it does not bode well for Hull City and the winners of the play-off between Watford and Crystal Palace, while Cardiff City are on a knife edge.
Steve McClaren is among the names on the short list for the job at Wolves.
Cue outrage. Save for an ill-fated and brief spell at Nottingham Forest, McClaren has been unable to work in this country since making a mess of England’s qualification campaign for Euro 2008.
At the mere mention of his name, supporters howl and the board get cold feet and look elsewhere. Of course, this backlash already happened once at Wolves when fans decided they could not bear to watch a team managed by Steve Bruce.
Fancy it? Steve McClaren has been linked with the Wolves jobThey will be spared that ordeal next season, what with Bruce’s Hull being in the Premier League and Wolves kicking off in League One.
So if Wolves could snare McClaren, who won the Dutch title with FC Twente in 2009-10, it would be a step forward. At the very least he deserves a fairer hearing than usual.
Manchester United are champions, proving that stability and faith in the right manager brings success. Chelsea have just won their second successive European trophy, demonstrating that managerial turmoil can be overcome with a talented group of players.
Sell your best men to a rival, though, and you win nothing, as Arsenal continue to prove. Anyone at the club who thinks they can spirit Wayne Rooney out of Old Trafford needs to get real.
Wantaway: Wayne Rooney has agitated for a move away from Manchester United for the second timeDavid Beckham played his final game for Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday, and will miss the last fixture of the season at Lorient on Saturday.
Earlier in the week Leyton Orient were forced to distance themselves from this event, pointing out that, logically, PSG’s final match is against a French Ligue 1 club based in Brittany, not the seventh-placed team in the third tier of English football. Expect a writ from Barry Hearn citing a loss of earnings for Beckham’s no-show nonetheless.
One last time: David Beckham played his final game for Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday eveningMore... Premier League end-of-year report: Which teams deserve top marks and which sides are bottom of the class? West Brom 5 Manchester United 5: Fergie's career ends with ten-goal thriller Farewell Fergie! A super send-off at The Hawthorns for his 1,500th and final game in charge of Manchester United Read the latest Manchester City news and views here Read the latest Southampton news and views here
