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- Brazilian football will implement a new rule curbing the amount of managers who can be sacked each season in a historic ruling
- Research has found that there are an average of 37 sackings of managers in the men’s game in Brazil each season – the most in the world
- Could it have wider implications for the game globally?
A new landmark rule coming out of Brazil could end the mass sackings of football managers in the country, with much wider implications for the overall game.
In March 2021, the Brazilian FA and their clubs announced that they had agreed on an historic decision to curb the number of managerial sackings by limiting teams to only two head coaches per season.
According to the new rule, the key points are (i) teams will only be able to fire a coach and bring in a new one from outside the club once per season and (ii) the rule also applies to coaches, who can resign and join another team only once.
How bad are managerial sackings in Brazil?
- An academic study published last year found the football coaching profession is more precarious in Brazil than anywhere else in the world.
- From 2003 and 2018, the Brazilian Serie A recorded an average of 37.1 coaching changes per season – the league has 20 teams
- The average term for a coach is just 15 games
- In the 2020 season, Botafogo changed coaches four times but still got relegated
- Only three of 20 sides retained the same manager for the whole of last season
- In 2019, 4 coaches sacked in 24 hours
- Brazil coach Oswaldo de Oliveira has coached 10 of the big 12 but never lasted more than two years in the job
The Smart Money Podcast discusses the end of Brazil’s managerial merry-go-round
The recent Smart Money Podcast covered the topic in detail with football journalist, Robert Kidd, giving us his thoughts on the issue. Check out the video below and also on A State Of Mind’s YouTube channel.
Read more about the launch of The Smart Money Podcast here also.
Why would Brazil aim to curb the numbers of managerial sackings?
- Finances: Getting rid of managers and their background staff are a costly business, especially in a league that isn’t flush with cash. On a much larger scale, Jose Mourinho’s multitude of payoffs are often mentioned and while Brazilian football isn’t offering those types of firing clauses, it does still cost a lot of revenue to replace managers and their staff. One specific reason even cited openly by the CBF for this new rule, the body that governs the game in Brazil, was “financial planning”.
- Long-term .vs. short-term: Given the volume of managerial sackings, much of Brazil football is short-term focused. Managers simply don’t have enough time to develop teams, players and a culture around a club. This can obviously have a hugely negative impact on younger players with teams chopping and changing up to three to four managers a season, only focused on winning games.
- Increasing numbers of European managers in Brazil: Mirko Jozić became the first European to win the Copa Libertadores in 1991. No other European coach had lifted the trophy. However, in two seasons, 2019 and 2020, two Portuguese coaches went back to back to win the title Copa Libertadores. Maybe the move by Brazilian authorities is a recognition of the need to start allowing its own young coaches to develop further.
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The implications of such a ruling obviously reach far beyond the Brazilian game. Could we see other leagues adopt such a rule, for much of the reasons I’ve outlined above? Quite likely.
The final word on this belongs to CBF President Rogerio Caboclo when announcing the new ruling.
“It is the end of musical chairs for coaches.”
