Mail Online

IT’S TIME TO BE HONEST ABOUT ‘LOYALTY’

FOOTBALL is the only industry where anyone still talks about loyalty with a straight face. If a supporter is offered a ten grand pay-rise to move to another job, they clear their desk and up sticks as soon as the ink is dry on the contract. For most people, the concept of loyalty to an employer is laughable. Pay, job satisfaction, moving up the ladder, holidays, pension and how the move impacts on their childrens’ schooling is all that matters. Why anyone thinks those who coach football teams should be held to a higher standard than gas fitters or surveyors beats me. The biggest difference is that most of them are thrust in front of the nation’s media once or twice a week. And the sight of a Sky Sports microphone perched on the press room table seems to make them spout flannel guaranteed to come back and bite them on the backside. Fans of both Celtic and Rangers have recent experience of how flexible loyalty and integrity can be in football. Brendan Rodgers spent two-and-a-half years telling the dogs in the street that Celtic was his dream job. Right up until the minute Leicester’s Thai owners came waving a big chequebook and it was terminado. Seven months before he left, Steven Gerrard made a declaration of love for Rangers on Sky Sports. When Aston Villa picked up the phone he fled south faster than Des O’Connor after a gig at the old Glasgow Empire.

When guys like Michael Beale turn down jobs at Wolves and start giving it some about ‘loyalty and integrity’, then, fans really should know the score. It’s a surefire sign the end is nigh. Football managers are no different to the rest of us — professionals trying to earn a living. Supporting a family is more important to them than supporting a football club. If they just said that in the first place, people would understand. And they’d save fans a lot of pain and grief every time they clear off.

Football

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2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-03T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://mailonline.pressreader.com/article/282922389451756

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