Managing in the League of Ireland is way tougher than the Premier League

They earn, industry sources have estimated, anywhere from €50-100,000 a year, depending on who you listen to.

So, while on the face of it, managers within the League of Ireland are on a decent salary, in reality they have as much job security as a trapeze artist - albeit with one difference. A trapeze artist has a safety net.

League of Ireland managers don’t. Lose your job - and three out of the 10 Premier Division managers have already suffered that fate this season - then where do you go?

It can’t be to Shamrock Rovers because the winner of the last four League of Ireland titles is there. Nor can they get any job in Ireland right now except the one at St Pat’s.

But that’s not much use to Jon Daly, who was sacked by the Saints yesterday, six months after guiding them to FAI Cup glory.

So, as crazy and illogical as this sounds, being a full-time League of Ireland manager is more pressurised than managing an English Premier League club.

“I would 100 per cent agree with that assessment.”

This is the voice of Stephen McGuinness, the secretary of the Players Union in Ireland, someone who has been involved as a player and an administrator in the League for 30 years. He doesn’t represent managers but is worried by the volatile nature of their industry.

McGuinness says: “A Premier League manager has a gigantic support staff, a recruitment team, access to all the technological aids that exist in football; he earns a minimum of €2m a year. He has access to a union.

“He is involved in an industry where there are 92 Football League clubs and then another 20 to 30 clubs which employ full-time managers. In other words, there are over 100 managerial jobs that could potentially become available for him to apply for.

“In the League of Ireland there are 11 full-time positions and the salaries are a fraction of what you get in the Premier League. A manager like Klopp or Guardiola earns as much in a week as most of our managers earn in a year.

“But you have to work way harder in the League of Ireland. They have to be manager, mental health expert, player recruitment expert, chief scout, rolled into one.

“They do other stuff way beyond the job spec. Damien Duff (the Shelbourne manager) talked about going on Daft.ie to find accommodation for some of his players. Here, every manager does that. They do absolutely everything. Some of them wash the kit. Some taxi players to training.

“I’d worry about them. They could all suffer burn-out. Is it more pressure than a Premier League job? Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. Because when an English Premier League manager loses his job, he wins the lottery. A League of Ireland manager loses his job, he is lucky if he gets a year’s salary.”

Anecdotally, the largest pay-out any League of Ireland manager has ever received is €100,000.

Contrast that sum with the settlements certain Premier League managers have received.

There was David Moyes, who flopped at Old Trafford, but for his failure received a settlement worth €8.14m.

But that was small change compared to the payouts Jose Mourinho collected from Spurs (€18.6m), Chelsea (€21m) and Manchester United (€22m).

Frank de Boer had an even better deal. He lasted only five games at Crystal Palace and then walked away with a €2.33m payout.

“When a Premier League manager loses his job, he has to worry about his ego,” says McGuinness. “But when a League of Ireland manager is made unemployed, he has to worry about paying the mortgage.

“They don’t have a standard contract - which players here do. Some have good, secure contracts. But in some cases it is like the wild west. They are really vulnerable when their job goes.”

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to back that up.

We spoke to one former League of Ireland manager yesterday about his old job spec.

“Put it this way, you don’t just pick the team,” he said.

The manager preferred to stay anonymous but talked about balancing budgets in between trips to Aldi every morning to buy groceries for the team’s breakfast.

He cut the grass on the training pitch; he washed jerseys when the kitman was on a day off; he booked buses, hotels and meals for away games; he completed his Pro License; he visited local schools and then there were the basics; he organised training and turned up on a Friday night for a match.

Amid all this he was managing 30 people and dealing with all sorts of personal issues, from childcare concerns to, most memorably, sourcing a new doggy day care unit for a player’s new puppy. For this he was paid 'good money'.

Until he lost his job.

Then it was back to the real world. It took months before he found work again. “And do you want to know the funny thing, the two weeks after getting sacked were the best two weeks you had, because the pressure was off,” he said. “You fear the sack when you are in work; then when it happens, there’s almost a relief.”

And yet he’d do it again if he got the chance because every aspiring League of Ireland manager dreams of being the next Stephen Kenny, the one who bridged the gap between the League and the Ireland international team.

Plus, there is the potential to make serious money, with any manager worth their salt insisting upon a percentage of prize money that the club earns.

Europe is where the pot of gold lies. Should a League of Ireland club reach the Europa Conference League group stages, the base fee is worth €2,940,000 for any club with any victory in the group stage worth an additional €500,000 and a draw worth €166,000.

That is where the chance exists to earn life changing money.

Most don't, though.

They toil, they stress, they try, they get sacked.

Three out of ten managers in the Premier Division have lost their job already this season, the aforementioned European prize money adding to the pressure as every club chases it, but only four can get it.

For those that don't, there is a price to pay, and while the scrutiny is nowhere near the same for a League of Ireland manager compared to his counterpart in the Premier League, two other things are true.

The standard of the games is most certainly is lower.

But so are the salaries. And that's a major reason why the pressure is greater.

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