Freebie Friday: Should there be a transfer type window for managers?

Are there too many complications for it to work?

The seemingly bizarre sacking of John Askey by York City earlier this week got me thinking about this piece as the Friday Freebie and it’s something that occasionally gets a mention within the circles of the game but it isn’t really explored enough, maybe because it’s a hard topic to get an end solution to, but is it time now have a manager’s transfer window?

It's I would say a loose translation of what I’m trying to get across, managers leave clubs for all sorts of reason but there does some a consummate ease these days for either a club to get shot of their man or a manager leaving because they think the grass is greener on the other side.

Of course, there can be circumstances where it’s amicable parting of ways, mutual consent they like to call it, but we’ll try and have a look at it and how easy or difficult it might be to implement something like that.

If you take the Askey situation it appears a good working relationship between the manager and the owner was beyond repair so no surprise to see Askey gone, a window in that respect wouldn’t have helped York City if Askey was having to stay until the window was open to replace him, the first complication, on the flip side some clubs appear too quick to sack a manager but a window might well shorten those odds.

Former York City manager John Askey

Just from that first point from what happened this week makes it unworkable you would think. If a manager was sacked for whatever reason, would a rule of only one change work between windows, ie. The likes of serial sackers Watford would really struggle!

While there might be ways for it to work for non-league in the National League further down where football is a secondary job for most management teams outside pressures do see a lot of managers standing down due to those commitments, but also where a lot move on for better money or clubs of a bigger stature.

Would it mean needing a lot of different rules to compensate at the different Step levels within the non-league pyramid? Quite possibly, I’m not sure one rule fits all due to the different nature of the game and then what happens where you get a few full-time clubs in a league with part time clubs, it almost becomes impossible to police and complicated for all to understand.

But, should the window only fit for those lured away to other clubs? That does cover a majority of non-league moves and seemingly easier to implement I feel, it’s those who get sacked where the issues lie more heavily.

It might make a club owner undertake more due diligence when appointing a new manager if they knew there wasn’t scope to replace them so quickly if things weren’t working.

It might work against things as well with a concentrated amount of moves happening within say a month, would other managers then resign when other jobs become available? It certainly asks more questions than there is answers

My notion is ‘football is built for the success of yesterday but not the foundations of tomorrow’, that comes straight from the top level and seeps down right the way through the pyramid. At non-league level it’s not evident everywhere, some clubs are very keen to build sustainably but they are starting to become a minority, some of it caused by the lost two years where football became a stop start competition.

I think it’s something that could be implemented if either governing bodies or league associations wanted to explore it, some of it is workable and some of it clearly isn’t, but surely it can’t be as complicated as VAR makes the game……..

Let me know your thoughts and leave me a comment below.