Yankees get the press to interview potential managers
Premier League clubs could learn from the baseball policy of grilling candidates in public, writes Daniel Schofield
It allows the media to dig for skeletons and reveals how hopefuls fare under the spotlight
When Everton and West Bromwich Albion come to start interviewing for their new managers, it is a safe assumption that both clubs will do their utmost to keep the process as clandestine as possible.
So what if clubs did away with this charade and just announced who was on their shortlist? In the United States, they go one step further still and put the prospective candidates in front of the press as part of the job application.
Crazy? Well to the New York Yankees it is just common sense. The baseball giants recently started interviewing for the role of manager, who decides the on-field tactics from the batting line-up and when to rotate their pitchers.
A key component of the job is dealing with the media, particularly as one as ravenous as the Yankees’ press pack. So each of the candidates – Rob Thomson, Eric Wedge, Hensley Meulens, Aaron Boone and Chris Woodward – has presented their vision to the New York beat reporters, who in turn have been allowed to prod and probe.
Brian Cashman, the general manager, told the
New York Times that the exercise served two functions. Firstly, it allows reporters to dig for any unknown skeletons – and in this current climate there seem to be whole cemeteries lurking around certain individuals – and secondly, it permits the organisation to see how candidates fare under the glare of the spotlight.
“You’re an extension of detective work,” Cashman said. “With the lights, camera, action, you see how people react, whether you want to call it mild questioning, tough questioning.”
This is not the first time a baseball team have gone down this route. Boston Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein appears to have been the first to have used the format to select Terry Francona as his manager in 2003. “We tried to rethink the interview process because we realised we ran the risk of hiring the candidate that interviewed the best as opposed to the candidate who was best suited to handle the manager’s job,” said Epstein.
There is a far greater culture of transparency within American sport. Reporters are allowed access to changing rooms after matches with the freedom to speak to any player they want rather than the one Premier League footballer who is begrudgingly put forward for two minutes’ worth of cliches in the mixed zone. All players’ salaries are published as a matter of course.
David Moyes’s appointment as West Ham United manager meant eight of the past 14 Premier League managerial appointments have been British managers aged over 50. With Sam Allardyce and Alan Pardew among the favourites for the West Brom job, expect that ratio to increase further.
Did Moyes convincingly explain away his 19 per cent win percentage at Sunderland and his spells with Manchester United and Real Sociedad as well as his threat to slap a female reporter or did the West Ham board think, “Yeah he’ll do”? Was anyone else interviewed?
Maybe Moyes truly was the best candidate for the job, but continually employing the same old faces suggests a startling lack of imagination among club chairmen. By publicising part of the hiring process, their inherent biases and assumptions would be laid bare and challenged.
If it is good enough for the Yankees, the second most valuable sporting franchise in the world, then it is probably good enough for West Ham or West Brom.