Brendan Rodgers has revealed that he would have rejected the opportunity to manage Liverpool had Louis van Gaal been appointed sporting director.
In a remarkable display of single-mindedness, the 39-year-old demonstrated his determination to stamp his authority on Liverpool with a forthright vision for the club and explained why he would not have tolerated being subordinate to a powerful individual such as the Dutchman.
Fenway Sports Group (FSG) had initially envisaged implementing a hierarchical structure with a sporting director at its apex, but the owner was so convinced by Rodgers that it opted to abandon that plan, choosing instead a more collective model with inbuilt checks and balances.
Such was Rodgers’s resolve on the issue that he sought clarification on three separate occasions that a sporting director would not be appointed over his head, particularly after learning that Liverpool had held talks with Van Gaal in Portugal last week, and that he would have total responsibility for football matters.
“I have to be honest,” Rodgers said. “In my negotiations, I felt that when Kenny went, one of the greatest clubs in the world receives about a million phone calls. Among those million phone calls are people who want to come in and tell them how to do things.
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“They [the owners] have probably spoken to one or two people about certain roles, but I wanted clarity on it and I didn’t agree until after three times. I wanted to make sure that I would be in charge of football matters; that I would control the team, control the work. Then what we have underpinning that is a team all with one vision and one mentality: that is to make the first team better.
“If it was anything other than that, I couldn’t have said yes because that’s not my strength. One of the things you need to do is to know yourself, and I know myself. I know what makes me work well and that wouldn’t have been a model I would have succeeded in.”
The Northern Irishman denied that the issue was simply one of control, though. “I am not a power freak, but my point is that I need to feel that I can manage it in terms of the team and I have a direct line through to the owners. Once that becomes hazed and grey, for me there is a problem. I don’t think it was a model the owners were set on, by any means. I think it was one that people have come to them and suggested.
“I’ve had total clarity with that from the guys, so I’ve got confidence that that will remain. It was for this reason that I didn’t want to be sat up there [in the press conference], say what I’ve said and, then in three weeks’ time, Louis van Gaal walks in the door. It does not work.
“If you want to have a sporting director, get him in and then you can pick your manager from there, but if you do, I won’t be the manager.”
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Liverpool are continuing to put together their football operations team and the latest departure is Steve Clarke, who lost his job as assistant manager yesterday. It also now seems unlikely that Pep Segura, the technical director at the club’s academy, will assume a more senior role in the new structure. But regardless of the relative merits of its make-up and the individuals who will fill the relevant roles, it is clear that Rodgers will hold the ultimate power.
“When you are at a club of this status and of this size, there’s no one person in charge of everything,” Rodgers said. “I can’t do everything, that’s nigh-on impossible, and that’s no different to any other top manager.
“They’ll manage their club — an Arsène Wenger, for example — and then they’ll have a chief scout and heads of recruitment and heads of medical, and he will manage that. These people will go out and identify targets that fit the identity of the club and bring a list of three or four names.
“We’ll look at the value and worth and then you’ll make the decision as the manager. It’s absolute madness if you are the manager of the club and someone else tells you to have that player. It doesn’t work.”