Football manager Antonio Conte is one of the most decorated managers – decorated with trophies, that is. He has won many in his own country of Italy, and when he moved over to Chelsea to manage the Blues, he won the Premier League in his first season. But he has been out of work since acrimoniously leaving the team, and unable to find work since.
The problem with him being out of work is due to the fact that he is actually still contracted to Chelsea. He has not been able to take up offers because he is under contract, but he is unwilling to resign because it would mean losing out on a compensation package. The Chelsea team, of course, are unwilling to pay more money to a coach for a final year of a contract that will not be served. So they are playing a waiting game and hoping Conte will resign while he tires of offers passing him by.
The gossip column goes that even a team as big as Real Madrid were hoping to lure Conte to the Spanish capital. When their manager Zinedine Zidane resigned suddenly after winning the third of his Champions League trophies in a row, Conte had been in the running and would have been appointed had it not been for his contract. Should he simply have foregone the Chelsea compensation then?
Contractual obligations are sometimes the difficult part in any job situation. But at least Conte is in a 1-1 situation – that is to say, there is only one person in a job opening. Imagine what it would have been like had he been in a pop band, where many members make up the group. How do you account for equal renumeration of work? How do you divide the royalties equally? And if people come in and out between albums, how can you adequately account for each individual’s contribution? The pop band The Drifters, for example, had such an ever-changing line up, that when it came to deciding which members of the group should be elected to the hall of fame, it was no easy decision! (You can read more about this from the Piano Lessons Crouch End website.)
And as for Conte, maybe now that Julen Lopetugi has been sacked from Real Madrid, the road is clearer than the path The Drifters took!