Quickly firing football coaches ‘makes no sense at all’

De Kuip

It is a familiar phenomenon in the football world: after only a few disappointing matches, the coach is already fired. Jan van Ours, Professor of Applied Economics, can be very brief about this: “The dismissal makes no sense at all.”

Van Ours of Erasmus School of Economics did extensive research into the effect of a change of trainer. In newspaper Nederlands Dagblad he explains: “If you analyse the dismissals of trainers, you come to the conclusion that they have at most a positive short-term effect. There is often a short-lived recovery that can be attributed to psychological factors. On average, clubs do not make any gains in the longer term.”

Shock effect

Van Ours explains that a change of coach has a direct impact on the state of mind of a group of footballers in distress. A new coach has his own way of working and provides a breath of fresh air, and players cling to that. “Sometimes there is a shock effect. Players can or must prove themselves again and the whole club realises that something must be done. The board speaks out, the press interferes, and a new kind of fighting force takes possession of the team.”

However, this effect is short-lived. “Often enough the new guy does even worse than his predecessor. Or the team falls back six months later.”

Professor
More information

Read the article in het Nederlands Dagblad (in Dutch).

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