Arsenal’s Premier League title after a 22-year wait is presented as a source of lessons for politics. The narrative contrasts the stability of Arsenal’s management with the frequent turnover of prime ministers. Mikel Arteta’s appointment in December 2019 is linked to continuity, while Downing Street is compared to a club that changes managers after poor results. The example of Alex Ferguson advising Tony Blair on managing a star player is used to argue that political leaders can take practical guidance from sport. The central recommendation is to start with stability and maintain a consistent approach over time.
"Start with stability. Mikel Arteta took over in December 2019, a week after Boris Johnson won a landslide election. While Arteta has remained in his post, there have been four prime ministers, with a fifth presumed to be on the way. Downing Street has become like Chelsea, changing bosses with every bad run of form. But the Arsenal way is different. Even when the team struggled coming eighth in two successive seasons,"
"Keep politics out of sport, they used to say. But there are things politics could learn from sport and specifically, from Arsenal's long-awaited success. And before you dismiss as fanciful the very idea of politicians taking advice from the dugout, recall that it does happen: former Manchester United boss Alex Ferguson confirmed that Tony Blair once sought his guidance on how to manage a star player who refused to obey instructions."
"I am referring, of course, to Arsenal winning the Premier League, ending a 22-year long wait that it sometimes seemed would never end. I claim no objectivity here. I became a fan just a few years into that drought, brought into the Arsenal fraternity by my young sons. So there I was, in the crowd that instantly converged on the Emirates Stadium late on Tuesday night, Arsenal shirt and scarf on, singing loudly and beaming at strangers."
Read at www.theguardian.com
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