A qualified success?

With Chief Executive Rick Parry set to leave the club, Liverpool FC has announced that his replacement, as Managing Director, will be Christian Purslow. Purslow is reported to have a degree from Cambridge University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, as well as being fluent in Spanish (handy given the proliferation of Spaniards at the Merseyside club). Liverpool co-owner George Gillett is thought to believe that Purslow's experience will be vital to the future of the club. An interesting story, especially for someone who works in academia and who's business is delivering education. But what does it tell us: about Liverpool? About football? About sport? And about the changing environment in which sports clubs now operate? At one time, the off-field workforce of football clubs was characterised by the employment of ex-players as leading officials and managers (e.g. former player Pedrag Mijatovic has only recently left Real Madrid, following Ramon Calderon's resignation as Club President) - is this changing? Are the managerial challenges now facing sport so different, so intense, and much less directly related to on-field performance, that the recruitment of managers from outside sport is becoming much more of a norm? If so, is this a good thing? Do such people bring skills and knowledge that can only be good for sport and the development of its managerial and commercial activities? Will the new breed bring more of a calculating, dispassionate and rational perspective to sport? Given the financial problems facing many sport organisations, rapid changes in the demands of fans, increasingly complex media markets and global developments in sport, the engagement of highly qualified managers is surely a no-brainer for clubs? Besides, isn't it about time that sport went through a period of culture-busting, with important decisions being made by educated, informed managers? Or, once MBA graduates start running sport, haven't we got to worry? Doesn't it herald the final descent of sport from a position of socio-cultural embeddedness to one where it is simply a commercial commodity? Do the people now securing important positions in sport diminish the heritage of sport? Isn't one of the reasons that managers in sport are often ex-athletes because they care so much and know so much more about sport than anyone else? Don't they make up for the absence of a top-business school education with their commitment and passion for sport, and their inside knowledge? And, if ex-players are going to disappear from sport management roles, won't it severely damage the link between current athletes and their on-field performances and what happens off-field?