Mollycoddling players makes sense when it’s a matter of life and death
ThE advertisement was small but spelled out the role in painstaking detail. Manchester City were searching for a support officer for their players, and the players’ families.
The successful applicant would require not just language skills, it seemed, but the determination and loyalty of Man Friday and the organisational and magical abilities of Mary Poppins.
The support officers would in effect run lives — manage the logistics of everything from house hunting to car buying, organising a plumber, registering with a GP, finding the right school, even structuring the household budget and paying bills.
City said fluency in Spanish and Portuguese was essential, with a knowledge of French, German or Dutch preferred.
Of course, this provoked mockery about the cossetted lives of modern footballers. Support officers are nothing new but City’s notice and its specifics requiring expertise in everything from childcare to house maintenance and accountancy went further than previously imagined.
And yes, we’d all like that. We’d all like a PA to make our appointments, sift through estate agents’ brochures and find the kids a school.
We are not, however, all working in a foreign country and needing to set up a permanent home abroad.
Sat in a house on the outskirts of Madrid — so, not a tourist resort, where English is widely spoken — could you explain a burst pipe, call a plumber, or get one to put in your washing machine? Would you know the right educational establishment, or the best doctor’s surgery in the area, if unable to communicate locally?
Alvaro Negredo was a great success at Manchester City early in his career, but his time in England soured over a personal issue. Feeling their way in a new country, his family placed trust in a person who acted like a friend but ended up taking them for a lot of money. Negredo’s young wife lost her confidence in the honesty of the natives and, feeling humiliated, wanted to return home.
This in turn affected the player. Indeed, looking at his performances one can almost pinpoint the moment at which England became hostile territory. Would a support officer have been of more assistance, steering a path through those first few months? That is no doubt what City hope. Footballers are easy targets for the nefarious. Young, wealthy, lacking experience of the world outside their bubble, they are vulnerable in a way high earners in other industries are not. Global companies will also have support officers or relocation advisers for senior executives moving country. What
they will not have is hangers-on looking to take advantage of the Group Finance Director, the way they are the new striker from Argentina. Most chief executives can see through a bad investment venture, or even an exorbitant quote for home decoration.
At least modern clubs acknowledge the way personnel issues have changed.
In his autobiography, Harry Redknapp recalled how it was when foreign players first came to English football.
‘The influx made our game richer and more professional, but it created a new challenge for clubs and managers, and we did not always deal with it adequately,’ he wrote.
‘Too often, we bought players in and dumped them in a house somewhere, gave them a car and expected them to get on with life. The lovely homes and other perks were all very nice, but if the wife does not speak a word of English and she is suddenly dropped in the middle of nowhere with no family or friends, and her husband disappearing on a pre-season tour for two weeks, no wonder things go awry.’
Redknapp told the story of West Ham signing Chile international Javier Margas, an excellent centre half with 63 caps and World Cup experience.
‘We gave him a house, we gave him a car, someone drove him home the first day to show him where everything was, and that was it,’ he continued. ‘We left him and his wife to get on with it. The following day, he got in his car, got lost, and ended up at Stansted airport.
‘Eventually he found his way to the training ground but, on the way back, going down some little country lane, the car got a puncture. He didn’t know who to call, he didn’t know what to do. And it just got worse from there.’
The tale ended with Margas’s disillusioned family flying home and the player jumping out of a hotel first- floor window and fleeing to the airport, rather than face a further meeting with his manager. West Ham were Margas’s last club as a player.
AT lEAST he got out alive, though. Emiliano Sala did not. Some two years on, the details of his death in a plane crash remain heartbreaking.
One of the reasons Sala made his fateful return to France from Cardiff was that he fretted about his dog, in a kennel in Nantes.
His doomed flight was supposed to go back earlier in the day, but Sala acquiesced to the pilot’s request to make a night flight.
Cardiff had a player liaison officer, Callum Davies, who was fluent in French and Spanish but would he have been empowered to take control? Could he have arranged to reunite him with his pet, insisted on a safer passage, maybe even accompanied him on the journey, to be sure?
Cardiff and Davies, who has since left the club, were doing the best they could. In hindsight, though, it wasn’t nearly enough.
With proper support — what might be disparagingly referred to as mollycoddling — Sala might be with us. That is why support staff are important. Anything can happen if you let it.
Sunderland at the weekend, Wimbledon slipped into the bottom four. Given that this season saw their return to Plough Lane, there will be a widespread will for Wimbledon to survive. This time, however, they’ll have to play their way out. At least one club will be watching with interest.
ONE SURE WAY OZIL’S EXIT COULD HAVE BEEN SPEEDED UP!