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Gareth Ainsworth's new contract

Extremely delighted that Gareth Ainsworth has a new contract running until 2023. Not just because he led us to promotion last season but because he is the ideal person to lead the club in its current constitutional format.

I remember discussing a manager's optimum tenure with Martin O'Neill many moons ago. He believed 5 years was the optimum stay at a club before you got treated as part of the furniture. However, things have changed so much in football that other priorities must now take over. The mad scramble for the Premier League cash windfall has skewed attitudes and morals beyond all recognition.

Suppose Aston Villa had come calling? A big club? Having failed to win promotion last season the owner now wishes to sell up. QPR? A club that seems to have a revolving door for managers! Leeds? Sunderland? "Big" clubs with an appalling lack of stability or patience.

A young manager like Gareth could have been tempted to one of these clubs. Yet through no fault of his own (budget promised never fulfilled etc) he could be out of work within 4-6 months at the whim of a foreign owner desperate to join the Premier League elite.

When you look at the mess some of these clubs are in you begin to realise the list of positives little old Wycombe Wanderers can offer. Stability, respect, decency, friendliness and a desire to progress but within your means. For a guy with a young family this surely has to count for a great deal.

I for one am very pleased he'll be staying longer. And which other club can boast a manager that fronts a band & drives a Mustang?!!! Now that is something.....

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Comments

  • Hear hear

    He is one of a kind and the bond between him and us is real and special

    Great news and hats off to all concerned

  • well said @A_Worboys all involved deserve a lot of credit.

  • Great post, Andy.

  • For some reason I could not "thumbs up" the opening post, but it deserves it!

    It is flying under the radar of most football fans, but at Wycombe there is now a simply remarkable sense if unity between the club itself, the manager, the players, and the fans.

  • Great news for the club, great bloke with the added benefit of great hair! What a rock n rolla

  • edited June 2018

    An incredible deal, one that makes you do a double take. Great deal for all parties.

    Gareth is a terrific guy. His best quality is his ability to recognise something needs fixing and how to do it.

    We saw that with the signings after the near relegation. The ditching of gaz for gaffer, the dealing with the hayes situation and adding.goals to what had been a really stale attack

  • Well said Andy.

  • Great post, agree with it all. And at least if/when Ainsworth does get a job offer he can't turn down, we should be handsomely compensated (unless the contract is somewhat unusual).

  • I fear Andy's post, while well intentioned, is tinged with a fair degree of blue tinted glasses. If GA is ambitious, he will have to move on to bigger clubs, indeed if the Barnsley local paper is accurate, he was interested enough in that job to talk to them. We obviously cant know whether he was overlooked for or declined that job.

    It must be considered unlikely that Ainsworth would sign a contract that had such a significant compensation package for WWFC that it made his hopes of securing a bigger job significantly less likely. Why would he? I imagine we would get a reasonable but not excessive sum and I would hope we would all wish him well.

  • God, you’re depressing @DevC .

  • I feel you just “don’t get it” @DevC . Your spirit seems alien on here.
    Off to attack the privet now!

  • Barnsley/QPR want Gareth. Oh no...we cannot hold onto him we have no money he is ambitious that's just what we need going into our League One Campaign. What is the club doing???
    Gareth signs a five year contract....is that wise, we don't know if he can handle League One yet, he's too ambitious to actually stay five years. Rose tinted glasses there from the club.
    Heeeesus H Christ! You got to love the Gasroom.

  • In an alternative universe I can see @DevC as a poet.

  • @micra, if you haven't learnt by now that Dev purposely runs with the "other" view to what most think, you never will!

  • As I see it the five year contract suits everybody.

    Gareth and his family are very settled in the area. His music is very important to him and I assume his band members live locally. Expectation levels are not high as they would be at say QPR.

    He now has security, as we could not realistically afford to pay compensation if we wanted to dispense with his services due to bad results. However, if results on the pitch did go pear-shaped I am confident that as a man of high integrity he would just walk away.

    We are more likely to retain and/or attract new players with a settled manager in place. He has built up a great reputation with other bigger clubs who are happy to loan us their promising youngsters.

    We have secured for a longer period a hard working improving manager and if a big club comes calling we may now be able to demand higher compensation. This would to a degree soften the blow of losing a classy manager.

  • Very well said @mooneyman.

    If we're winless going into October, GA has no fear of losing his job, and is therefore free to manage with the long term in view. if, as expected, we're champions by Easter Monday, we're protected from losing him for a song.

  • it's just great news

    Chance to build a Shankly-esque legacy that will see his name etched in Wycombe folklore forever

    In decades to come we will boast to wide-eyed, envious grandchildren that we saw Ainsworth's Wycombe

  • "But Granddad, was it not a risk to award a five year contract to a manager unproven at that level?"

  • "were you not constantly worried that Barnsley were going to appoint him whilst lecturing fellow supporters in advance that they shouldn't be surprised?"

  • Out of interest, and without meaning to do a DevC, does anyone not put Ainsworth in our Top 3 greatest managers of all time?

  • As far as I can tell, only two posters (who may or may not be one) are not delighted by this news.

    Plainly the directors of Wycombe Wanderers believe this contract is in the best interests of the club. I have absolutely no reason to doubt that judgement.

    Plainly Gareth Ainsworth believes this contract is in the best interests of Gareth Ainsworth. I am delighted he does.

    Plainly none of us know the compensation amounts agreed should a) we wish to sack him - which would strike me as a ridiculous thing to do b) should a big club come knocking. that is how it should be.

    In respect of the latter, a reasonable assumption would be that GA would not sign a contract that made it financially impossible to him to move to a bigger club. he has stated openly that he wants to one day and indeed it appears that he spoke to Barnsley about their job in the summer.

    Regardless its a really good news story that gives us a better chance of a better future.

  • Gives us more security (and him) financially, but if we do get off to a flyer, I still can't see it stopping a championship club from pinching him, his wages would more than double, so even a 2 year championship deal would be better money wise than 5 with us.

    Still, it will rule out a number of clubs closer to us in the ladder and more importantly it's a show of intent.

  • @Malone said:
    @micra, if you haven't learnt by now that Dev purposely runs with the "other" view to what most think, you never will!

    Strangely enough @Malone the thought HAD drifted across my feeble mind. My gripe is with the man’s unrelenting joyless discourse. Devil’s advocacy can in itself become extremely irritating of course.
    Perhaps that’s what the Dev is short for.

  • Very good micra.

    But reviewing this thread, I am struggling to find anything I have posted that you would disagree with.

    Out of interest to put this into perspective, Gareth Ainsworth now has a five year contract. I have no idea what he earns but for the sake of the argument lets assume £80k

    1) if QPR wanted to acquire his services on 31/12/2018, roughly how much would you know be expecting in compensation
    2) if we lost every game and decided to sack him on 31/12/2018, roughly how much would you expect to pay in compensation

  • edited June 2018

    @micra , don't read it, just stick the ignore button on. Or just feel sorry for the poor guy living 100s of miles away and not experiencing these joyous times in the flesh.

  • It’s a brilliant bit of business for all concerned and credit to GA and AH.

    I can answer some point of your questions Dev and others.

    The length of contract for the Manager isn’t worth much to the manager by way of security in the event poor performances lead to his “sacking”.The Managers association handles all negotiations once a club board decides it’s over in most cases and 6-12 months compensation is roughly standard regardless of if there is 5 years or 2 years remaining on the contract term.Generally.

    Signing a long term deal is done for a few reasons usually.to provide more bargaining power for the club should offers come in for the manager in terms of size of compensation,which given approaches recently to GA ,is the case here.

    The other reason is in the case of new investors or owners coming into a club either requesting a significant asset is secured long term ( such as an excellent manager that provides stability), or the manager requesting a longer contract at a club ripe for takeover or with political unrest at board level in order to preserve his future at the club as best he can.

    It’s not common for a figure to be placed on the managers contract ie “ he is signed for 5 years and a club must pay £5 million if they want to take him from us “ as this would be handled as part of any negotiations,remembering any club must seek our permission to speak to GA for the next 5 years thanks to this good business.

  • @DevC to support @micra you do tend to look at things coldly and logically (at least in a proportion of your posts) that do seem joyless to what is at its basic level a game.

    Games should be fun. Your way of talking about it all as a business (while in many many respects being valid) do take an awful lot of the fun out of it.

  • I am not sure that is quite right, marlow.

    As I understand it, managers contracts are just legal contracts like any other. the devil is in the detail of terms that we cannot possibly know. they will vary from contract to contract.

    Unless there are specific terms in the contract governing what happens when one or other party breaches the contract, then normal contract law applies. The club has breached the managers contract by firing him. He is entitled to be compensated for that loss.

    The loss is his net loss though and he is obliged to take reasonable steps to mitigate that loss. So if he lost a job paying £80k with four years to go but got another one six months later on the same salary, his loss would only be £40k not £320k. If he didn't bother to search for another job, the court may assess that he is responsible for at least part of his financial loss and reduce his payout accordingly.

    In practice it is managers and clubs interests to negotiate a settlement as soon as possible after departure and he may indeed use his "union" to do that on his behalf.
    he is very unlikely to negotiate anything like the full salary in the remaining period of his contract (unless there is a specific clause to that effect) but length remaining remains a factor in that negotiation. if it wasn't why on earth would a manager sign a long contract.

    Much the same applies the other way around when a new club wishes to poach an existing clubs manager. Length of contract is a factor but there is no prospect that the club will get the full salary value of his unexpired contract. Again why would a manager sign up for a clause that made it far less likely that he would be able to move upwards.

    Devil is in the detail. We don't know the detail. We are guessing what compensation would be payable in the two scenarios I give.

    My guess (and emphasise it is purely a guess) is that compensation in both cases is unlikely to reach six figures.

  • I hould have made clear. Regardless of potential compensation claims either way, it is bloody good news that GA has signed a new contract.

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