Romano: Fonseca appointment down to Tottenham board’s approval

Tottenham Hotspur’s new manager appointment is now awaiting a rubber stamp from the board of directors, according to the latest reports online. Fabrizio Romano tweeted earlier today that Paulo Fonseca has agreed to terms to become Jose Mourinho’s permanent replacement at Spurs, but the deal needs to be approved by the board before the announcement can be made.

Is this normal? I don’t know. It sounds normal. It’d be weird to make a managerial appointment without the blessing of the Board of Directors for the club to which the new guy is going, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a board approval elevated in this way before. It might have something to do with this being a deal worked out via Tottenham’s (still not formally announced!) Director of Football, Fabio Paratici and this is just an extra step.

But it’s that very reason that makes me think that this is indeed a rubber stamp and not anything that we should worry will be rejected by the board. While there have been unsourced rumblings that “fan concerns” have had a negative impact on the board’s thinking here, Daniel Levy gave Paratici the power to go out and find a manager, and Paulo Fonseca was Paratici’s choice. If the board is going to reject Paratici’s choice, basically his first real decision in the job, because of fans’ knee-jerk reaction to Fonseca not being Antonio Conte, well then they might as well just fire Paratici now. And THAT is why I’m not worried. (Also, making short term major decisions based on the mood of the fanbase is a remarkably stupid way to operate a football club.)

My guess is that this will be sorted out today and that we’ll see an official announcement of Paulo Fonseca as Tottenham’s new head coach early next week.