Dundee will be city’s top club for a long time if they get it right - Jim Spence

Search for a new manager is full of pitfalls

Neil McCann’s appointment as Dundee FC manager, when it seemed Jack Ross was a shoo-in as the new boss, may have looked a bit like a Keystone Cops movie from the outside. However, things are seldom straightforward in football and the search for a new manager has pitfalls ranging from leaked stories to outright rejection.

Despite trying to appear as though they are in charge, the directors and chairmen at most clubs are usually at the mercy of forces beyond their control in these matters.

In such situations the conditions are ideal for wanted men to increase the money on offer from the club looking to hire them, and the one hoping to keep them. That’s how the business works. It also has a knock-on effect throughout the game as managers at other clubs hear of increased wage packets for their counterparts and start asking their own chairmen for more.

A word in the ear from a successful manager to a few favoured journalists that another club is interested in acquiring his services to replace their outgoing manager, and a prompt increase in the bank balance usually follows, along with an extension to the current contract. Football is a mercenary business. I have never met anyone in the game who is embarrassed to talk about money.

Those fans who think of football as a bastion of shared socialist values would be in for a rude awakening if they saw deals being done.

The game is unashamedly capitalist: bright red in tooth and claw.

The only currency which counts in signing players and managers is hard cash: the more, the merrier.

Dundee have secured as manager the man who saved them from potentially dropping into the Championship.

He has the opportunity to push the Dark Blues towards a position in the top six – which, with the crowds and financial backing available to them, is where they should be .

I wrote in this column in 2015 that Dundee could become the number one club in the city.

As things stand they are, and could be for a long time if McCann and the American owners get it right both on and off the pitch.

Their ambitions will become clearer once the first few signings have been made.

That will indicate how serious the Dens board is.

A repeat of last year’s scramble to avoid relegation is unacceptable and would squander a great chance to firmly cement themselves as a top-flight club.

Fall from grace Tiger Woods’ fall from grace has been dramatic.

An injury-ravaged recent past, and now distressing pictures of him trying to walk a white line to satisfy police officers he was fit to drive, followed by a grim looking mug shot, shows that sporting greatness and wealth are no protection from the trials and tribulations of life.

Woods has been a great ambassador for golf, but it might be kinder now for both he and the sport if he put the clubs away for keeps.

Picture: SNS. Neil McCann with Dundee managing director John Nelms. In football, the search for a new manager is not as straightforward as it might appear.

Picture: SNS. Jack Ross had looked to be a shoo-in for the manager’s job at Dens.