In Antonio Conte’s strategic playbook, certain events come around like clockwork. In between the Tottenham Hotspur manager’s many successes as a club coach, there are the regular confrontations with his employers. Any student of Conte’s career can pinpoint accurately when and on what terms he will pick those battles.
Ahead of Thursday's evening trip with Spurs to Manchester City, Conte steered his pre-match press conference towards the issue of institutional responsibility, of club executives facing – or, rather, not facing – up in public.
It has been a tough task answering questions about Spurs’ form lately. They lost the derby at home to Arsenal at the weekend and have lost five of their last 10 Premier League matches, and slipping out of the top four in the table.
“I think it would be good to have the club present in the media, to speak,” said Conte. “Otherwise, there is only one face to explain a situation which is better for the club to explain.” That face, that voice is always his. “I have never seen the club, or sporting director, come to explain strategy and vision. If only the coach speaks, there are sometimes misunderstandings.”
If that could hardly be mistaken for anything other than a challenge to the Tottenham hierarchy, in the middle of a transfer window that, publicly and privately, Conte has urged his bosses to use to strengthen the squad, it also echoed remarks he has made in the past about feeling exposed.
Here’s Conte speaking in the summer of 2020, 14 months into his previous job, as coach of Inter Milan: “There’s very little protection from the club, absolutely zero,” he complained. The third transfer window of his time at Inter was just opening when he said those words. Note the timing. Conte is 14 months into managing Spurs, and in his third transfer window of his time in North London.
Rewind to early 2018, into his second season managing Chelsea, and reporters were listening to Conte pointedly saying “the club must be ready to share responsibility,” and suggesting “the club prepare a statement, a statement of support”.
Conte had guided Chelsea to the league title the previous May, in his first season working in England. But by his 14th month in charge there, with his second season not matching the same standards, he was already referring to Chelsea’s 2016/17 title as “a miracle.” The same word – “miracle” – has started to creep into how he describes Spurs’ achievement in finishing fourth last season.
Tottenham 0 Arsenal 2: Player ratings
Thus the Conte calendar, where tussles with the board play out from one club to the next as deja vus. After this January window is over, the Spurs chairman, Daniel Levy and his advisers will turn their minds to how hard to push Conte into prolonging his stay beyond June.
The Italian insists he is keen to build at Spurs beyond then, but he has a famously restless history. His stints at Chelsea and Inter lasted two seasons each. He was at Juventus, where he won a trio of Serie A titles, for a year longer, up until 2014, but it was a three-year period sprinkled with spiky remarks about a perceived lack of investment in the squad compared with spending at other European superclubs.
Ahead of the trip to the Etihad Stadium, Conte described City, English football’s leading superclub, “as the best team in the world at moment”. No matter that, like Spurs, Pep Guardiola’s side are fresh from a defeat in their local derby, City the narrow losers, via a controversial goal, at the weekend to Manchester United.
It’s a fixture that, Conte must anticipate, will be taken as a measure of Spurs’s progress, year on year. Last February, Tottenham went to City and pulled off an improbable 3-2 victory, Harry Kane outstanding, and, significantly, two newcomers from last winter’s recruitment, Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski, influential in directing Spurs’s effective counter-attacks.
Kulusevski, on a long-term loan from Juventus, scored within five minutes of his first start and set up Kane’s winning goal in the fifth-minute of stoppage time, just after Riyad Mahrez seemed to have salvaged a point for City.
“We were very good and showed great resilience,” recalled Conte of a win that began Spurs’ march up the table from the minor European positions to qualification for the Champions League. “Against Manchester City, you have to try to not make mistakes. You know, for sure, ball possession will be 70 or 75 per cent for them. If you have 25 per cent you have to be very good, move the ball well and create chances.
“Also, in this type of game, you need to be a bit lucky to get a good result.”
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
What vitamins do we know are beneficial for living in the UAE
Vitamin D: Highly relevant in the UAE due to limited sun exposure; supports bone health, immunity and mood.
Vitamin B12: Important for nerve health and energy production, especially for vegetarians, vegans and individuals with absorption issues.
Iron: Useful only when deficiency or anaemia is confirmed; helps reduce fatigue and support immunity.
Omega-3 (EPA/DHA): Supports heart health and reduces inflammation, especially for those who consume little fish.
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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TEACHERS' PAY - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Pay varies significantly depending on the school, its rating and the curriculum. Here's a rough guide as of January 2021:
- top end schools tend to pay Dh16,000-17,000 a month - plus a monthly housing allowance of up to Dh6,000. These tend to be British curriculum schools rated 'outstanding' or 'very good', followed by American schools
- average salary across curriculums and skill levels is about Dh10,000, recruiters say
- it is becoming more common for schools to provide accommodation, sometimes in an apartment block with other teachers, rather than hand teachers a cash housing allowance
- some strong performing schools have cut back on salaries since the pandemic began, sometimes offering Dh16,000 including the housing allowance, which reflects the slump in rental costs, and sheer demand for jobs
- maths and science teachers are most in demand and some schools will pay up to Dh3,000 more than other teachers in recognition of their technical skills
- at the other end of the market, teachers in some Indian schools, where fees are lower and competition among applicants is intense, can be paid as low as Dh3,000 per month
- in Indian schools, it has also become common for teachers to share residential accommodation, living in a block with colleagues
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Fly Etihad or Emirates from the UAE to Moscow from 2,763 return per person return including taxes.
Where to stay
Trips on the Golden Eagle Trans-Siberian cost from US$16,995 (Dh62,414) per person, based on two sharing.
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