UK Athletics head coach given marching orders with immediate effect- no explanation as yet. What the hell is going on at UKA?

He probably did a good job.

bbc.co.uk

Technical director Maguire leaves UK Athletics

UK Athletics technical director Stephen Maguire leaves with immediate effect despite a joint-best medal haul at August's World Athletics Championships.

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Following Team GB's best performance at a World Championships in 30 years, this news certainly comes as a surprise.

It might be worth noting that Maguire oversaw the decision to reject numerous World Athletics invites on behalf of British athletes and send a far smaller team than usual to this year's championships- a controversial decision that many would say Team GB's success happened in spite of, as opposed to because of.

We've merged two threads into 1 and combined the titles. Anyone know what's going on here. It seems bizarre they'd do this for a) performance reasons or b) even budgetary reasons.

Should we assume it was an HR issue?

DM got the dirt

dailymail.co.uk

UK Athletics technical director Stephen Maguire is SACKED

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Riath+Al-samarrai

Maguire guided Britain to a record-equalling 10 medals at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest in August and was looking forward to leading the squad into next summer's Olympics.

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I'm not sure you understand what "marching orders" means.

Accountability SUCKS

Wish we had it at Track Town USA

In the UK and Australia, to be given "marching orders" is to be told " to leave", "to get lost", "you're fired" or "f*** off".

Much like Arizona’s James Li “retiring” abruptly right in the middle of cross country season with no replacement coach lined up. There is always more to the story when so few details come out during an abrupt departure.

Here's what the dorks & weenies at The Guardian think is going on. Looks like a $ issue. Gotta send more $ to Zelensky and his Nazi Buddies. Sorry, Dina.

theguardian.com

UK Athletics chief blindsided by shock sacking nine months before Paris 2024

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/seaningle

The shock firing of Stephen Maguire as UK Athletics chief came about following months of simmering tensions and rows over budgets before next year’s Paris Olympics

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That decision was entirely down to Jack Buckner as it was the method he used at British Swimming.

We can only guess at whats going on, as it's a quite secretive organisation. Atthlete and coach contracts prevent them speaking out.

My guess is that Maguire was taken on to cut costs and that's what he did, by cutting sending athletes to championships and by making redundancies. In doing so, he has probably ruffled too many feathers. Jason Gardner on gardening leave for months?

Generalising, it seems yet another example of the typical UK management problem of a new manager introducing sweeping changes across the board simply to prove their worth, (because to get appointed, they have to claim to want to do something radical) under performing (in some way) and then being sacked. Ad infinitum. The whole thing, hiring costs, widespread organisational changes and disruption and golden handshakes, costs a fortune. Boards in charge of hiring in the UK prefer tough talking individuals who spout management clichés but who are all too often difficult to work with and under perform in terms of cost benefit analysis..its rife throughout the UK.

The good results at the World Championshhips this year have little to do with Maguire, and are the legacy of his predessors. Obviously, not sending qualified athletes to championships is going to lead to worse performances in the future as it will prevent young athlete development.

Anyone else sick if hearing from Asher-Smith? Maybe she should be left behind for Paris as no longer a realistic medal prospect and has become an unreliable starter in recent years in the relay squad as her ego won't admit to her own declining performances and there "has to be" some physical reason wrong.

What kind of nonsense is this, whether she's in medal form at the moment or not she is still objectively the best female sprinter Britain has seen. She literally also medalled last year whilst not being 100%. If someone as good as her (made both sprint finals even at her worst) can be left off the team then the GB team would have about 5 people.

She's been having some nerve problems recently, and has also just changed coach, hopefully she'll be in good form next year. I must stress though that even at her best form it will be hard to medal, because of the state of women's sprinting, not because she is trash or anything.

Weird, because what it actually means is to be told how to accomplish a mission.

If all of the drama at UK Athletics is about $$$, the real question is why are they struggling so much financially? The athletes do their sports and get paid. The coaches coach and get paid. The administration administers and gets paid. Where is the money coming from (or not coming from)? If Max Siegel can get a boatload of cash for usatf, certainly someone more competent can do better for UK Athletics.

Don't lecture people about "what it actually means."

dictionary.cambridge.org

marching orders

1. If you give someone their marching orders, you ask that person to leave a…

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Well its nothing like the USA. There's no "Nike" money. A lot of the money in UKA comes from grants. This means the owners of UKA (yes they have shareholders) have a pretty good moat. So for instance supposed you wanted to get behind UKA and offered say a million pounds to "buy" UKA from the shareholders. There would be no assurance that the UKA you bought would get any of that revenue and it just wouldn't go to a new organization (or nowhere). TV money is almost non existent. They put on a diamond league that costs them a fortune. Don't get fooled by the 50,000 tickets. Just to put the track in is 3 million. That's 60 pounds for each spectator.

Again, comparing it to the USA is pointless. Its like looking at U of O's new track and stadium and asking why Oregon State doesn't do that.

He blagged his way into a succession of high performance jobs, leaving before he got found out and left chaos in his wake.

He finally got found out.

Thanks for some insight. I personally think the usatf Nike deal was trash, but it keeps the federation afloat. The UKA situation seems like it's on the verge of eminent collapse unless there is a serious injection of cash. These shareholders need to look outside of pure cost cutting measures and seek new sources of revenue. Creativity is key, not entrenching yourself further into an antiquated system. Relying solely on government grants (handouts) doesn't allow for any innovation. There is plenty of marketing money in this world to make up any difference of lost grants.

you incels are so strange.