THE decision made by the chairmen of the Premiership regarding the immediate future of Gareth Southgate as manager of Middlesbrough was somewhat overshadowed by the fact that Chelsea had been playing the same day in the Champions League.

While it's big news when Chelsea actually lose a game anywhere, the Southgate decision could have a more long-lasting effect.

Up until a couple of years ago, the path to managing any one of our 92 professional clubs was pretty straightforward.

The route was usually taken by a player coming to the end of his career keen to stay in the game which had been their life since school.

Of course, at one time the prospects outside of the game were severely limited and the wages, while more than the average man on the street, were not enough to enable a professional to retire to the sunshine.

That meant there was always a queue for lower division clubs as everyone expected the top jobs to go to someone who had done their apprenticeship at lower levels with some measure of success.

We then had the revolution of the Bosman ruling, the freedom of movement around Europe particularly and the advent of the Premiership which effectively made a them and us situation' - the top 20 pulling away from the other 72, with the help of Mr Murdoch's millions.

While different nationality players flooded in, particularly to the top flight, foreign coaches also began to arrive.

That inevitably meant less opportunities for our home-bred coaches - but it was also decided that the rulings which applied in other parts of Europe had to be adopted here.

Specifically, that anyone taking on a job in the Premiership had to have the same credentials as those coming in such as Messrs Wenger, Houllier, Ranieri, Mourinho, Benitez etc.

This meant that our coaches had to attain the UEFA B, UEFA A and then the Pro Licence coaching certificates.

Normally that would not concern too many of our ex-players. Going back as far as I can remember, there were two certificates - the preliminary badge and then the full coaching badge.

Most of us were happy to take part in them.

It was not deemed compulsory to enable you to get a job - just a more than helpful opportunity to learn how to front up a group of players and pass on any knowledge.

In addition, you could mix and mingle with fellow professionals trying to do the same thing.

The most significant difference now is that the top award requires a full year's work with attendances at various times on a residential course and submission of work such as proof of coaching sessions etc during the year.

Once again, nothing wrong at all with the educational side of this: you can't get enough knowledge while preparing for any job in any walk of life.

But the most significant factor to hit our players was the fact that no Premiership job could be given before the certificate was attained.