GBE for Managers & Backroom Staff
Day 5 of the 12 Days of GBE Expert Hub Content
"I can confirm I will not join Barnsley FC because of the (permit) disaster.”
This quote from the Yorkshire Post on 1st May 2024 is from Dominik Thalhammer, not Ruben Amorim, an Austrian football coach, who Barnsley seemingly had targeted to replace Neill Collins very late on in the League One season earlier this year.
It is one of the very few instances where the general public have been notified of a negative outcome in a work permit (GBE) application. Whilst this didn’t work out well for Thalhammer, and Barnsley also failed in their quest to get promoted that season, Darrell Clarke is now doing well with the Yorkshire club and looking on course for another crack at promotion back into the Championship.
"They said the exception panel would have been a formality. For me it’s randomness.”
Whilst these quotes are obviously coming from Thalhammer who, at the time, we can guess would’ve been in a place of disappointment, and as such we can forgive the emotive language, but, again, it was interesting to see some aspect of the process being discussed in a public forum.
It also leads quite nicely into our discussion of the rules and regulations around the appointment of head coaches and other non-playing staff in the post-Brexit era.
What are the rules around head coach recruitment?
As far as I can tell, the Thalhammer appointment fell through because of his immediate history before Barnsley made their approach for him in April 2024.
According to Thalhammer’s Transfermarkt profile, he hadn’t managed a team after leaving Cercle Brugge in September 2022. He had only been in that job for 10 months, and had previously been at LASK in Austria for 14 months between 2020 and 2021. Whilst he had a long back catalogue of work before this, the FA regulations are actually quite clear with what they will accept as a valid application for a GBE for a head coach.
Many clubs in England have found these rules quite surprising and restrictive when they have looked to appoint a new head coach.
This feeds into the popular, and surely correct, narrative of pre-planning for coaching changes. Even when, and, perhaps, especially when a club is happy with their head coach there should be a regular assessment of the market going on. This should obviously take into account the rules stated above when looking at potential non-domestic candidates.
Point to note:
There is no differentiation between Band 1 and Band 5 for appointing head coaches. So the same consideration is given whether the manager has been coaching in Italy’s Serie A, Brazil’s Serie A, or the Australian A-League.
As Dominik Thalhammer found out, there is an exceptions panel that applies to head coach appointments.
The FA have given some additional criteria as to what they will consider at an exceptions panel. Barnsley obviously thought that they could convince the panel of the value of Thalhammer, but their submission was rejected.
There have been managers that have been successful at exceptions panel though, so it isn’t a forlorn hope.
Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland
As we know, Brexit affected all parts of the UK, and there are different documents for all of the FAs across the country.
Unlike the player criteria, there are very few differences across the FAs in the way that they give out their coaching criteria.
Indeed, the only real differences are that Scotland and Northern Ireland don’t specify that the coach has to come from a ‘top league’, which, in this case, means a Band 1-5 league.
Scotland has seen Jimmy Thelin, Phillipe Clement, and Simo Valakari been appointed in recent seasons, with varying degrees of success. There hasn’t been any foreign appointments of head coaches in the Welsh and Northern Irish top divisions since Brexit.
What has been the effect of the legislation on appointments in England?
The initial set of regulations came into force on 1st January 2021. The GBE Expert Hub has tracked all of the managerial appointments in the Premier League and EFL since that date.
The information above was correct at the time of putting the information, including the appointments of Ruben Selles at Hull, and Omer Riza at Cardiff, which has brought the Championship more in-line with the pre-Brexit ratios.
It is really the Premier League which has demonstrated the largest pre to post-Brexit difference in their managerial appointments, and it is not the way that Brexit regulators might have anticipated. Indeed, the key market force in the managerial scene in the Premier League is, of course, money, and the money in the Premier League is, understandably, attracting the best talent on a global scale.
The below image shows all 32 Premier League managerial appointments post-Brexit, and it is interesting to note that the domestic appointments are often mid-season and parachuted into clubs who are underachieving/under relegation threat. Only one domestic manager has been appointed in a year, and even Steve Cooper has been sacked since then as well.
Has there been any knock-on effect for English head coaches?
We have seen from the appointment data that chances for English coaches to be appointed in the Premier League are fewer than they were pre-Brexit, and, at this stage, are almost unexpected.
Recent speculation around the Manchester United head coach is quite informative in this regard. Whilst there were some domestic candidates linked to the job, whenever there was public discussion over the likes of Gareth Southgate, Graham Potter, or Kieran McKenna, there seemed to be an overriding sense of derision when compared to foreign candidates. Obviously, Ruben Amorim has been appointed, making it six foreign appointments in a row for the club since David Moyes’ tenure ended in 2014.
Is it becoming more difficult for domestic coaches to get a chance in the professional game?
Research conducted by The GBE Expert Hub demonstrates some trends around first-time managerial appointees in the top four English football leagues.
The numbers tell us that more first time managers are being appointed, but that is quite misleading on its own. The reason more first time managers are being appointed is because more managers are being appointed. The changing of head coaches or managers has become more rapid in recent years.
Indeed, the information above tells us that first time managers are getting less and less time to prove themselves. The first time managers appointed in 2023/24 only had, on average, 23 matches in charge. Over half of the first time managers are dismissed in the same season that they are appointed in.
However, some first time managers do get more time, as long as they are successful. Jon Brady just resigned from Northampton and so has just missed this list, but this is a list of all first time managers still in a Premier League or Football League job. (NB. Some had managerial experience outside of the PL/EFL before getting their first league appointment)
Giving the likes of Arteta, Carrick, and Cleverly chances in the top two divisions is clearly partly based on their playing experience, but there are a few names on the list who never even played professionally as well. There are chances out there, but they are few and far between.
The GBE Expert Hub is equipped to help clubs in their search for a new head coach. The understanding of the rules and regulations regarding potential foreign candidates, and the use of data partners in the game, as well as an understanding of the trends, means that we can work with your club to make the correct important decision. Contact us for more information on this.
What are the rules in the women’s game?
There was a hint at the end of yesterday's article on GBE in the Women's Game that mentioned about the rules for non-playing staff for women's clubs. These regulations apply to WSL and Women's Championship clubs.
In essence, the rules for the women’s game are the same as for the men. The only difference is that there are only two bands of leagues to choose from, and fewer nations in the international game.
There are criteria for other roles in the women’s game as well, and they follow the same pattern as we see in the section below.
Can other staff members be appointed post-Brexit?
The FA have separate documents for a few different non-playing roles.
Assistant managers are often a tricky one. These are the non-playing staff members that are often most at-risk when a foreign appointment of a head coach is made.
As in the domestic game, there is often a very strong relationship between the head coach and their assistant, but sometimes the assistant doesn’t pass the criteria and either they will have to go via the exceptions panel, which does exist for staff members, or they simply can’t be appointed.
There are also documents for directors of football and performance managers, as well as a document for youth non-playing staff. However, there is nothing for ‘senior’ non-playing staff, which is quite a confusing omission.
It is also interesting that though the exceptions panel exists for staff, it is still the same cost as it is for players. So if a club do want to go through the exceptions panel for a staff appointment then it will cost them £5000 plus VAT, which would be sizeable chunk of salary for many of these positions.
