- 6 January 2026
In quick succession, two of English football’s most prominent clubs have parted company with their head coaches amid very public tension. The departures of Ruben Amorim from Manchester United and Enzo Maresca from Chelsea were played out not quietly behind closed doors, but through press conferences, briefings and post-match remarks that raised questions about working conditions, authority and accountability.
While the immediate focus has been on results and personalities, for governance professionals these episodes offer a broader and more enduring line of enquiry. They expose how fragile governance arrangements can become when roles are unclear, oversight drifts into intervention, and organisational pressures are amplified by constant external scrutiny.
Football as a testing governance arena
Football is an unusually demanding environment in which to practise good governance. Decision making can be emotionally charged, its fallout often highly visible and always subject to relentless commentary from fans, partners, former players, pundits and the media. Few sectors operate with such a dense and vocal stakeholder ecosystem, offering real-time judgement on leadership competence and organisational direction.
Overlaying this scrutiny are longstanding governance challenges around financial sustainability. Despite its monied reputation, modern football is a largely loss-making endeavour. Yet even the most beneficent or profligate owners and their boards are ever-conscious of the financial repercussions of poor performance. Failure to qualify for European competition or sliding down (or out of) the Premier League carry huge implications for revenue generation and so can prompt knee-jerk reactions, particularly where an owner is keen to preserve asset value. With much of the public debate about football governance centring on spending controls, debt, ownership models and regulatory compliance, boards are expected to balance competitive ambition with an increasing – and now regulator-driven – focus on financial discipline, but are still often under intense pressure to deliver short-term success. This creates an environment where governance discipline is both most necessary and most difficult to sustain.
In this context, the temptation for owners and executives to become more directly involved in operational matters is understandable. But it is also where governance risk is greatest.
Role clarity and accountability
Both Amorim’s and Maresca’s exits highlight the consequences of ambiguity in role design. Amorim was appointed as a head coach rather than a traditional manager, a distinction that in modern football often signals a narrower operational remit, particularly around recruitment and squad strategy. Yet expectations appeared to shift over time, leading to uncertainty about where authority ultimately lay.
Maresca’s situation at Chelsea exposed a different but related challenge: operating within a crowded leadership structure with multiple sporting directors and highly engaged ownership. In such models, the lines between strategic oversight and operational control can become blurred unless responsibilities are clearly articulated and consistently observed.
From a governance perspective, the issue is not whether one model is preferable to another, but whether roles are defined with sufficient clarity to allow individuals to be held to account fairly. Where job titles, authority and expectations are misaligned, tension is rarely a surprise.
Managerial sackings represent a time-honoured method for a club’s hierarchy to be seen to address perceived performance failures, but they can give scant regard for where culpability may actually lie. Though it is costly and disruptive to remove a head coach (which usually also entails the departure of a wider coaching team), negotiate severance packages and appoint a replacement, it would be far more expensive and impractical to replace an under-performing playing squad. Moreover, it also raises questions over the initial appointment and the process and strategic vision behind that decision. Amorim was in post for 14 months and was United’s sixth full time head coach in 12 years. Maresca fared slightly better, lasting 18 months at Chelsea. Wilfried Nancy, sacked by Celtic FC on the same day as Amorim’s exit from Old Trafford, was at the helm for just 33 days. Trigger happy boards and owners often don’t face accountability for their own role in the succession planning behind such crucial appointments, for the frequently chaotic and sometimes incoherent approach to personnel management and for the short-term thinking that blights the game.
Oversight, intervention and pressure
These cases also underline the fine line between legitimate oversight and perceived interference. Boards and owners have a duty to set strategy, manage risk and protect long-term sustainability. However, when that oversight extends into day-to-day operational decisions without transparent escalation routes, trust between governance layers can erode.
Crucially, governance failures of this kind are often systemic rather than personal. Under sustained performance and reputational pressure, behaviours shift. Intervention can be framed as responsiveness; challenge can be interpreted as obstruction. Without strong governance frameworks and shared understanding of boundaries and responsibilities, organisations can quickly find themselves destabilised.
Culture, challenge and escalation
The public nature of both departures also points to weaknesses in internal challenge mechanisms. In well-governed organisations, disagreement is expected but managed through trusted processes that allow concerns to be raised, tested and resolved constructively. When frustrations spill into the public domain, it often signals that those processes are either absent or no longer effective.
Boards have a critical role in setting the tone for how challenge is handled, ensuring senior leaders have credible routes to escalate issues and reinforcing behaviours that support collective decision making rather than public confrontation.
The role of the new football regulator
These episodes come at a significant moment for football governance. The Independent Football Regulator was established by the Football Governance Act 2025 and assumed the power to use some of its powers last month.
While much of the regulator’s focus will be on financial sustainability, ownership and fan engagement, the underlying message is broader. Governance standards, role clarity and effective oversight are no longer optional. However, regulation can set minimum expectations, but it cannot substitute for disciplined governance behaviour, a sound culture or thoughtful organisational design.
It will be interesting to see the form which the forthcoming code of governance for football will take. The Institute responded to the relevant sections of the recent consultation on the proposed Licencing Regime and we look forward to engaging further with the IFR as it develops a framework for robust and sustainable governance across the game.
A wider lesson for governance professionals
The departures of two high-profile head coaches may feel far removed from most boardrooms. Yet the dynamics on display, unclear authority, competing expectations, external pressure and weakened internal challenge, are familiar across sectors.
Football simply magnifies these issues and brings them in front of a wider audience than might otherwise take an interest in governance. For governance professionals, that makes it a useful case study. When governance fundamentals hold, organisations are better equipped to navigate volatility and scrutiny. When they weaken, instability is rarely far behind.
Further help
If you’re interested in exploring these issues further, visit the Sports Governance Academy for resources, events and expert guidance on good governance in sport: www.sportsgovernanceacademy.org.uk