Rangers manager Mark Warburton is a mixture of Gordon Gekko and Karl Marx
A CAPITALIST who made his fortune as a City trader and backs the bankers but yet is a socialist when it comes to his football. Mark Warburton, for it is he, came across as part Gordon Gekko, part Karl Marx within the same conversation at the end of last week, as he put forward his thoughts on hard work, reward and fairness in the beautiful game.
And there are some who will tell you the Rangers manager doesn’t have much of a personality.
He wanted to speak about how and what players earn. Back in the day, footballers were paid a flat rate and made their money through bonuses which came with positive results and silverware. Some teams still earned a weekly rise if they lost but the manager felt their efforts deserved better.
Now the likes of Aston Villa’s Joleon Lescott is likely paid more than even Warburton during his stint working 18-hour days as a currency dealer, despite the defender’s team being bottom of the English Premier League having played like a bad pub side for the past 18 months.
It didn’t stop Lescott accidentally, ahem, tweeting a picture of his car which would not look out of place on Tracy Island after a recent 6-0 thrashing, a reminder to all his critics of his significant wealth.
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Warburton would like to bring the bonus scheme back at Rangers, something more or less unheard of these days, because that’s how he sees life. Work hard, do well and you will get rewarded, whether you wear football boots or red braces. Play badly and lose, the pay packet might just be a bit lighter.
“I like it when things are incentive driven,” he said. “Back at Brentford we had a great bonus scheme. I thought it was second to none in the Championship. Likewise, it was the same the year before in League One.
“You incentivise the players and it’s performance based. If you’re doing well then you’ll be looked after. I’m always going back to the City, the bankers always got criticised; ‘This banker got a seven- figure bonus, that’s not right.’ Yet, he’s made $10 million for the bank. That guy going to work has made a $10m profit.
“Why wouldn’t you, as an employer, agree to pay that employee a seven-figure bonus – it’s 10 per cent of what he’s made. So the incentive is there to drive you on. The more you earned, the more you got.
“Why can’t that be the same with points and goal difference?”
So that’s the capitalist side of him, but where does the left-wing political ideology come from? More Orwell than Osborne, as it were.
“I’m not a fan of when you walk into a squad and see players on different appearance-fee levels,” said Warburton. “You and I both play 90 minutes and you get one amount and I get half. How does that work?
“There are things you can do and that helps with unity and harmony. If someone is getting double for the same performance, it can’t promote good unity in the dressing room.
“I’m a big fan [of players getting the same] and that has to be phased in over a period of time because of existing contracts. But if you can get to a stage where there is consistency in certain key areas then you’re in a good place and the players know that as well.”
Bill Shankly would be proud of him. Not that the former miner would have much time for Warburton’s old trader workmates.
“I know there’s one or two big investment banks down south who used to have a flat-rate salary for everyone and they made their money via the bonus,” said Warburton as he returned to thinking about his previous life. “You only made good money, as such, if you delivered a profit.
“So therefore that to me is great. If you come into work every day and you know that if you do well then you’ll get rewarded, well that’s a great culture to have. What’s wrong with that? Any industry, if people are doing well, they should be rewarded.”
Reward for Warburton won’t be purely monetary. A win over Queen of the South this afternoon at Palmerston – on one of those wretched plastic pitches – would take Rangers three points closer to the Ladbrokes Premiership he so covets.
“I’d like to get to the very top but you only get there by delivering,” said Warburton. “A banker delivers profit; I’ve got to deliver certain very clear targets here. David Weir is hungry from his playing career, I’m equally as hungry to do well. But it takes time, you have to put in foundations and try to build from there and show you can build a football club as opposed to a short-term fix.
“But what is the life expectancy of a manager these days? I think at one stage last year I was the fifth longest- serving manager in the Championship. Managers were going left, right and centre and the average was eight months. It’s ludicrous.
“Given a chance, you build foundations and owners and the board can see a bigger picture being realised and if you do that, then hopefully you get your rewards in terms of moving forward in the game.”
