The shifting balance of power in modern football
The recent departures of Enzo Maresca and Ruben Amorim underline an uncomfortable truth: the role of the head coach is no longer the definitive seat of authority at many top clubs. Increasingly, club chiefs, sporting directors and owners pull the strings behind the scenes. Yet when controversy erupts, it's usually the manager who must walk into the media glare alone.
Maresca's exit from Chelsea and the messy end to Amorim's time at Manchester United were not identical, but both revealed the same dynamic — tension between the dugout and the boardroom that became public and ugly. In each case the coach's frustrations spilled into the open, exposing fractures that might have been better handled away from the cameras.
Managers as lightning rods
Coaches accept that their job requires constant engagement with the press: pre-match briefings, post-match interviews and work with broadcasters fill the calendar. That ritual was designed when the manager was the central figure in club affairs, responsible for transfers, tactics and dressing-room harmony. Today, however, many of those responsibilities are shared or entirely reallocated to directors of football and executive teams.
This evolution has created a paradox. While managers still stand in front of microphones and answer for results, they no longer always control the levers that determine those outcomes. When recruitment decisions, contract negotiations or strategic direction are made out of the manager's hands, the public narrative can quickly point the finger at the one person who is still expected to explain everything.
Accountability needs to run both ways
Clubs are quick to shield senior executives from scrutiny. Yet if a sporting director approves transfer policies that leave a squad short of balance, or if ownership sets unrealistic short-term targets, those are decisions that deserve public explanation. Asking managers to shoulder the blame for systemic failings is unfair and unsustainable.
There is a simple remedy: those who hold genuine power should also accept public responsibility. Regular, transparent communication from sporting directors and owners would not only distribute accountability more evenly, it would also improve trust between supporters and the institution they follow. It would make rare the situations where disagreements are aired in exasperated quotes or abrupt departures.
A culture shift is overdue
Football is more than a manager's clipboard. As clubs modernise their structures, they must adapt how they engage with the media and the fans. If executives want the benefits of operating behind the scenes, they must also be prepared to step forward when decisions are questioned. Otherwise, we will keep watching managers like Maresca and Amorim take the fall for issues created well above them.
The bottom line
If accountability is layered across a club, so too must be its public face. Managers will continue to answer for on-pitch performance. But when strategic choices go awry, those who make them should make themselves available to explain — not leave their coaches to face the music alone.
