LMA Still Angry At Newcastle’s Roeder Dispensation

Leage Managers’ Association chief John Barnwell has attacked the Premier League for opening the flood gates for clubs to appoint the “butcher, baker and candlestick maker” as Premiership coaches following their decision to allow Glenn Roeder special dispensation to take over as Newcastle boss.

Barnwell has declared himself absolutely furious that the premier League have circumvented the rules to allow Roeder to take up the post despite not holding the UEFA Pro coaching licence usually required for coahces with less than ten years relevant experience to coach in the top flight.

Barnwell said: “Football is full of failed geniuses – full of them. Preparation in football management is vital.

“Go and ask Jose Mourinho. It doesn’t happen overnight.

“The UEFA Pro Licence stops those people who make the appointments from appointing the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker.

“But prospective managers are now looking at it and thinking, ‘If I want to manage in the top league, I don’t need to bother to get qualifications, do I? What am I bothering for?’.

“The Professional Footballers’ Association have blown their lid as well. All their guys will think they don’t need to bother (with the UEFA course) now. So I’m absolutely furious.

“It’s not about Glenn Roeder. He’s been on a minimum wage as an academy director.

“He’s had three years to get his qualifications and suddenly because of circumstances he’s been jettisoned into the job and quite likes it.

“Results have started coming, as they often do with a caretaker manager, and I suppose it’s very easy to give him a massive contract.

“To go from not a lot of money to a lot of money, good luck to him.

“His name is being used and Newcastle are using that as a vehicle and we’re not. People have forgotten the same thing happened with Eddie Gray at Leeds, and Steve Wigley at Southampton and here we are, still in the same position.

“Why have regulations? When the lights are red you shouldn’t go through them.”

“We’ve taken 70-80 people through that programme,” said Barnwell. “What are they going to think now?

“Newcastle go on about Roeder but Roeder signed up to the (UEFA) course and he didn’t do one week. He’s had three years.

“Why didn’t he go on the Pro Licence four months ago?

“Roeder cannot manage in the Premiership by the regulations but they have seen fit to give dispensation because it’s convenient.

“Does that mean every other regulation which is inconvenient we can argue over? I suppose it does.

“To all those people who have bothered to go through the B licence, the A licence and the Pro Licence – because they want to manage at the highest level – and all those people who say we didn’t have a national coach qualified enough, it all flies in the face of that.

“If we are a professional business, you have professional qualifications. The decision just lacks all credibility.

“We have had 400 managers dismissed in the past five years because the majority were badly prepared. You have to prepare to go into football management.

“Why can’t Englishmen get jobs abroad? Because they will not appoint you if you don’t have the proper licence.

“That’s what Sampdoria did with David Platt – they said, ‘No, off you go’.

“There’s no guarantee with qualifications that you’re going to be successful. What it does is give you a better chance.”

Regardless of John Barnwell’s feelings it seems that Roeder will still be named Newcastle boss on Monday and as Barnwell says, the proverbial floodgates will now open.

Once again in Premiership football, it seems that regulations are only to be enforced for some clubs and not others.