With Manchester United due to take on Middlesbrough at the Riverside stadium, the managers have been a loggerheads about the managerial badge issue that has surrounded the appointment of Southgate at Middlesbrough and the appointment of his North-East rival Glen Roeder.

Southgate was given a reprieve by the premier league and has been allowed to manage while working toward his qualification. He had blamed a lack of coaching staff, and waiting for whole years to enrol on the course. However his biggest gripe has been playing for his country. He said “I had no opportunity because the only courses are during the summer and I spent 10 summers playing for England.”

Sir Alex Ferguson has made his opinion very clear, “The regulations were set out to improve the standard of coaching and the people coming into the game and they should have remained,”

“The whole thing was changed by Freddy Shepherd when he rounded on the other chairmen to get the rules changed so he could appoint Glenn Roeder.
“I am a committee member of the LMA, I feel the rules were absolutely correct and it was wrong to change them.

There is a fundamental difference between Roeder and Southgate, in that Roeder had been a coach and a manager before the Premier League introduced the new rule. When an illness stopped him from working and from achieving his qualification. Where Southgate has come straight from being a player to being a manager with only his captain leadership qualities to rely on.

There will no doubt be considerable frustration for those who worked long and hard to achieve their qualification, now that the premier league have set a precedent of allowing people to work as they get their badges.