Fabio Paratici appeal rejected, leaving Tottenham manager pursuit in tatters
By Gary Pearson
Fabio Paratici’s appeal has been rejected, leaving Daniel Levy in charge of Tottenham’s head coach pursuit, placing the club’s future in further peril.
Nobody associated with Tottenham wanted to hear the news that broke late Wednesday. The Italian Olympic Committee’s Board of Guarantors rejected Paratici’s appeal, leaving the Italian sitting helplessly on the sidelines for the foreseeable future.
Even worse, the news means that Levy will be responsible for sourcing and hiring the new head coach.
Paratici will almost certainly be permanently ushered out of Hotspur Way, as it’s hard to conceive of Levy finding the patience required to wait for his director of football’s suspension to run its course.
Scott Munn, Tottenham’s new chief football officer, will invariably add input while Levy searches for a new gaffer. But make no mistake; Levy has the reins on Spurs’ head coach search.
That’s a disastrous scenario for Tottenham and its supporters, who can barely stomach hearing their chairman’s name, let alone running arguably the most important manager search in club history.
Before Antonio Conte took the helm, Tottenham’s previous search for a head coach was catastrophic. The Lilywhites broke the Europe-wide record for the longest stint without a head coach.
That’s the most diplomatic way of putting it. Before Paratici signed on the dotted line, Tottenham- specifically Levy, completely bottled the manager search.
Countless names were rumoured – including Roberto Martinez, Graham Potter, Eddie Howe, Brendan Rodgers, Paulo Fonseca, Mauricio Pochettino, Simone Inzaghi, Gennaro Gattuso, Jurgen Klinsmann, and others – but only a few materialized to anything more.
Nothing got done while Levy was in charge of that diabolical manager pursuit. Paratici then entered the fray and made an immediate splash, albeit with the discredited hiring of Nuno Espirito Santo.
Paratici redeemed himself by orchestrating Conte’s hiring.
Of course, Conte’s tenure at Spurs didn’t turn out how we all wished, but aside from a move that would have seen Pochettino return, it was the right decision at the time.
Now Spurs are left with Levy in charge of pursuing their next manager, which will most likely end in tears. It would be yet another Levy failure in a long line of the chairman’s egregious mishaps.
He already mishandled the immediate aftermath of Conte’s dismissal by appointing Cristian Stellini, a mirror image of his predecessor, as the interim coach.
dark. Next. The boos that were heard across the world
I shudder to think of what comes next. Hopefully, for the first time in about a decade, Tottenham supporters are pleasantly surprised by who Levy names as the next manager.
But please don’t hold your breath.