Sir Gareth Southgate warns club managers are losing authority

• Gareth Southgate says modern club structures are steadily reducing the authority managers once held.
• He accepts the shift toward sporting and technical directors, but says pressure on head coaches has not eased.
• He argues the job now involves bigger squads, bigger staffs, heavier analysis, and constant media scrutiny.

Sir Gareth Southgate says the authority of managers is being steadily eroded by the way modern clubs are structured, even as pressure on the role continues to rise.

In a post on LinkedIn, the former England boss wrote that the increased use of football, technical and sporting directors has shifted decision making upward, with those figures now sitting above the head coach and reporting to senior executives and ownership.

“The erosion of a manager’s authority has been a gradual process over many years,” Southgate wrote.

“It has accelerated with the widespread introduction of football, technical, or sporting directors, who now oversee long-term football strategy, report directly to CEOs or owners (or both), and sit structurally above the head coach.

“Personally, I have no issue with this evolution.

“Strategy, culture, planning, and continuity are critical to success in any organisation – and a football club is no different.”

Southgate’s comments come after Real Madrid, Manchester United and Chelsea have all changed head coaches since the turn of the year. He said that while Madrid’s Xabi Alonso, United’s Ruben Amorim and Chelsea’s Enzo Maresca left under different circumstances, “power struggles either with club executives, club employees or players were ultimately the root cause of the end of each tenure”.

Amorim’s exit at United followed a public dispute about control. Speaking less than 24 hours before his removal, he told reporters: “I came here to be the manager of Manchester United, not to be the coach of Manchester United. That is clear.”

Southgate argued that modern club structures are now seen as necessary because a head coach cannot realistically handle the full scope of football operations. He wrote that a head coach “neither has the time nor, in many cases, the specialist expertise to manage complex player contracts, oversee global scouting networks, or run sophisticated data operations”.

He also rejected the idea that the shift from manager to head coach has reduced the workload on the person running the team, writing that “the opposite is true” given “larger squads, bigger backroom teams, far greater analytical demands and ever-increasing media and commercial obligations”.

“The complexity of managing modern-day players (many of whom are effectively individual brands), alongside the financial stakes for clubs and the relentless scrutiny of both traditional and social media, and you have a significant melting pot of problems and pressure,” he added.

Southgate said clubs should keep modern leadership structures while restoring clarity over what the coach must control day to day.

“My belief is that we should embrace a modernised version of the traditional manager, where we recognise the people they lead, manage and coach,” he wrote.

He also recalled telling his bosses in the England role: “players are not magnets on a tactics board that can simply be moved around.

“They are human beings. And managing that reality is at the heart of modern football leadership.”

Southgate, who managed England from 2016 to 2024 after previous roles at Middlesbrough and with England Under 21s, wrote that different titles have created a “subtle, sometimes unintentional, shift in power and status”. He said he “insisted on changing the title to manager” when he was offered the England job, so it reflected the “authority, influence and control” he would need in the role.