Kevin Keegan’s early days at Newcastle have not been the most auspicious, with a nil-all draw at home against Bolton and comprehensive defeats by Arsenal in the FA Cup and Premier League. His personal attempt to lure Toon hero Alan Shearer back to the club as an assistant manager was politely declined by the television pundit, at least for now.
So how was he expected to react to news that Newcastle is embarking on a major restructuring of management, including the appointment of Leeds United manager Dennis Wise in the role of Executive Director (Football)?
At first he called it a “distraction”, but now it’s had time to sink in he sounds quite enthused by the idea.
“Dennis will report to me,” he said. ”The way it’s been explained to me is my concentration is on the first team and getting the club right. I welcome the fact that people are going to try and pull this club together because it has got a bit fragmented, a bit disjointed.”
The move seemed to shock a lot of people in England, but all Newcastle are doing is trying to move the team’s management structure to a continental model.
“This is all part of the vision that recently helped us to secure Kevin Keegan’s return to the Club as manager,” Chairman Chris Mort said, in a statement posted on the club’s Web site.
It’s hard to imagine something similar happening at Alex Ferguson’s Man United, or Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, but look at other big clubs and you’ll see the set-up is pretty common.
Bernd Schuster has Pedja Mijatovic at Real Madrid, Txiki Beguiristain does a similar job at Barcelona, Uli Hoeness manages Bayern Munich and even AC Milan have Adriano Galliani between Carlo Ancelotti and Silvio Berlusconi.
Having a buffer between coach and club president, someone whose job is not under threat every time the team has a bad run of results and can therefore take the long-term view, seems to work well enough at most of Europe’s top clubs. Why not in England?
PHOTO: Newcastle United’s new executive director of football Dennis Wise (2nd L) sits next to chairman Chris Mort (L) during their match against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in London January 29, 2008. REUTERS/ Eddie Keogh
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4 comments so far
It can all go a bit far though, like at Juventus.
- Posted by Mark MeadowsAbove manager Claudio Ranieri in ascending order there’s team manager Gianluca Pessotto, sporting director Alessio Secco, chief executive Jean-Claude Blanc and chairman Giovanni Cobolli Gigli. Above him of course there are the Elkanns, the heirs to the FIAT empire and the real Juve owners, while there’s also a host of others on the board.
It’s all partly to offer checks and balances given how former general manager Luciano Moggi got away with trying to fix matches which caused Juve’s demotion.
I assume Dennis isnt going to bring in some of his former crazy gang…Vinnie Jones for assistant deputy junior managing team director?
A lot of the directors of football at the big European clubs are usually men who know about all the big leagues in Europe, have a lot of experience in the game and, most importantly, have made a lot of good football contacts along the way. I’m not sure that Dennis Wise, at 41, could be expected to do that kind of job.
And I reckon that’s what Keegan thinks too. He might say he doesn’t mind Wise being there but read between the lines - reasserting “the chain of command” or whatever term he used - and I reckon it took Keegan by surprise as much as the rest of us.
I bet I wasn’t the only person who half-seriously thought, “Ooh I wonder if Keegan will quit over this?”. His history shows that when the going gets tough, he bolts.
- Posted by Mark GiffordThere might be a lot of people who start to say it’s not the way things are done ‘here’ i.e. England but I think that Keegan has a great point when he says the whole club needs to be brought back to a bit of stability. Surely having people involved with clearly defined roles is a great way of doing this, therefore everyone knows their duties and doesn’t have many considerations on their minds.
- Posted by Betting Blue BoyThe problem with this is that it sometimes doesn’t work, I hope for the sake of Newcastle that it does, yet this could probably give the Newcastle support another individual to vent their anger at.
I don’t see a problem with the basis of the role Wise has been given. It makes sense to have someone in that position and has been shown to be successful around the world.
The issues in this case seem to be the qualifications Wise has for this role, which seem to be minimal, and the fact that Keegan can’t decide whether he knew about the appointment or not.
Time will tell, but Keegan is certainly right that the club needs stability, and I’m not sure that the way this has come about is a good way to start.
- Posted by Graham Fisher