David O'Leary coached Leeds United to the semi-finals of the European Champions League. Sergio Farias led the Pohang Steelers to the championship of Asia and third place in the 2009 Fifa Club World Cup.
Those credentials bought each just a bit more than half a season coaching in the Pro League.
Their dismissals last month, by Al Ahli and Al Wasl, respectively, have brought renewed scrutiny to the dizzying pace of hiring and firing of football coaches in the country's top-flight league.
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• Al Jazira prove that continuity breeds success
• UAE Pro League clubs stubborn to shift in attitude
• 5 good and bad moves in UAE football history
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The numbers are eye-popping.
In nearly three seasons since the Pro League was established, 45 men have coached the 16 teams that have spent at least one season in the league. Those teams have changed coaches 41 times, and 35 of those changes were made during the season.
Only nine men have coached a club from the beginning of a season to its end, and that is assuming that Paulo Bonamigo will remain at Al Shabab to June 9, the final day of the season.
The league has seen 12 coaches lose their job. In comparison, England’s Premier League has witnessed four in-season changes from 20 clubs. Nearby Qatar has employed 16 coaches among its 12 clubs during the current campaign.
“In this region, we don’t have the patience and want quick results,” said Ahmed Khalifa Hammad, the chief executive of Ahli, the club that had signed O’Leary to a lucrative three-year contract.
“We can’t wait for the victories, and all the plans last only a short while.”
Ahli and Al Nasr have employed seven coaches each since the autumn of 2008; Al Dhafra, Al Wahda and Wasl each have employed five. Curiously, Ahli and Wahda each won league championships during that time, seasons in which they kept the same coach from beginning to end.
“I know that in this part of the world it is common to replace the coach when things don’t go your way,” Carlo Nohra, the chief executive of the Pro League, said: “I fail to understand the reason for this. It’s all about a plan and perseverance and when you have a plan to see it through.
“Football here is handled on an emotional level, to a large degree. Certainly, it is the privilege the owners have to run these clubs as they see fit, but I am not convinced that kind of change will bring about the change they desire.”
Josef Hickersberger, the Austrian who left Wahda after last season and returned in October as the club’s third manager of this season, said every coach in the country understands this culture.
“You always know your next match could be your last,” he said. “This is part of football here and you have to know.”
Abdulhameed al Mishtiki, the Emirati who was fired in December by Al Ain and hired by Ahli four months later to replace O’Leary, suggested that the Pro League approach to coaches is not particularly unusual.
“All over the world you can see that every coach is changing, except [Sir Alex] Ferguson, [Arsene] Wenger and [Pep] Guardiola,” he said. “Every club that spends money needs to win a championship. We have a professional league now in the UAE, with big salaries and big pressure.”
Some believe that upheaval in the back room affects more than the living arrangements and income flow of a handful of foreigners. They say the changes damage the development of football in the country.
“Hiring and firing coaches at will will have a negative impact on the Pro League,” said Kefah al Kaabi, an Emirati who played football here and is now a television football analyst. “It reflects the bad planning on the part of our clubs, particularly those who run them.”
Winfried Schaefer, the German fired by Al Ain last season, said constant change hampers the career growth of players as well as coaches.
“If you want to work with young, local players it is important to [work with them] for more than one season,” he said. “This would make UAE football stronger and it could help to support local talents more and more in the future, and in 10 or 15 years the very well-educated local players will become very good local coaches … But if you change the coach and hire someone with a totally different philosophy, you can’t work continuously in training up young players.”
Coach after coach arrives in the region and stress it takes time to build a winning side and implement their philosophy. O’Leary, for example, said if he got the three seasons he signed for, he expected Ahli “to win every trophy in the country” in the third year. He got 15 league games.
“The best thing is to keep the coaches for a longer time,” Bonamigo said. “Only then can you work your philosophy with a team and create a strong unit. You cannot come and make some magic in one day or one week. You need to know the players and their strengths, and the players need to get comfortable with the coach and understand him.”
Subait Khater, the midfielder, has seen Jazira’s perseverance with Abel Braga for the past three years pay dividends. “I am a firm believer that the coach must be given enough time and also the resources,” Khater said. “It doesn’t do any good for a team to consistently change the coach.”
Why are coaches changed? Generally because the win ratio is not high enough and demand for success is so high.
“Football in this country is a form of social expression,” said Nohra. “Here, football is really the only social player and that is why it is cherished so much.” Hence, he said, “winning is non-negotiable”.
However, some coaches, such as Laszlo Boloni, at Wahda, early this season and Farias, at Wasl, apparently had trouble interacting with their players. Club executives, when announcing Farias’s dismissal, said he trained players too hard.
At Wahda, the players just did not get on with Boloni, who brought with him a reputation as a stern taskmaster. “We had a change early in the season because we had no harmony with the coach,” Haider Ali, the Wahda captain, said. “I think the club took the right steps to discontinue that partnership.”
Nohra said coaches are “fired far too easily”, which he believes demonstrates that the Pro League has strides to make before it is fully professional.
“The essence of what I’m talking about is that with professionalism comes accountability, and everyone is accountable to someone above them, players to coaches, coaches to management, management to shareholders,” he said.“What we see if this chain of accountability is not followed through; it always stops with the coach. That is not a professional principle. That is not how you run a company.”
Hammad, who is in his first season as Ahli’s chief executive, issued a reminder that “this is only our third year as a professional league” and said clubs will learn to embrace patience with their coaches in the future.
For now, he said he cannot disagree with those, such as O’Leary, who have said that the highs of winning and the lows of defeat are particularly extreme here.
“Fans put pressure on boards of directors,” he said. “Everybody is looking to that result, and the clubs here in every pre-season are giving a very high impression about their season, and they explain to everyone how they are going to win the championships.
And when it doesn't happen and people realise this, the boards are blamed a lot. The boards cannot fire all the players, they fire only one, who is the coach."
poberjuerge@thenational.ae
Additional reporting by Amith Passela, Ahmed Rizvi and Gary Meenaghan
Founders: Ines Mena, Claudia Ribas, Simona Agolini, Nourhan Hassan and Therese Hundt
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2. Never store a card PIN (personal identification number) in your mobile or in your wallet
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
What are the GCSE grade equivalents?
- Grade 9 = above an A*
- Grade 8 = between grades A* and A
- Grade 7 = grade A
- Grade 6 = just above a grade B
- Grade 5 = between grades B and C
- Grade 4 = grade C
- Grade 3 = between grades D and E
- Grade 2 = between grades E and F
- Grade 1 = between grades F and G
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
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The biog:
Favourite book: The Leader Who Had No Title by Robin Sharma
Pet Peeve: Racism
Proudest moment: Graduating from Sorbonne
What puts her off: Dishonesty in all its forms
Happiest period in her life: The beginning of her 30s
Favourite movie: "I have two. The Pursuit of Happiness and Homeless to Harvard"
Role model: Everyone. A child can be my role model
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The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
If you go
The flights
There are direct flights from Dubai to Sofia with FlyDubai (www.flydubai.com) and Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com), from Dh1,164 and Dh822 return including taxes, respectively.
The trip
Plovdiv is 150km from Sofia, with an hourly bus service taking around 2 hours and costing $16 (Dh58). The Rhodopes can be reached from Sofia in between 2-4hours.
The trip was organised by Bulguides (www.bulguides.com), which organises guided trips throughout Bulgaria. Guiding, accommodation, food and transfers from Plovdiv to the mountains and back costs around 170 USD for a four-day, three-night trip.
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
NO OTHER LAND
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
