It tends to be a summary execution, with few frills.
The more fortunate victims have a blindfold, in the form of a compensation cheque.
Avram Grant, for instance, will walk away from West Ham with as much as £3.5million.
Nice work, if you can lose it.
Football men are conditioned to the consequences of failure.
Most CVs are studded with P45s.
The sack is a fact of life. Rejection is endemic.
For some, it comes at 16, or 18. Only the strong survive the refusal of a first professional contract.
They are lost in a twilight world, of what could have been, what should have been.
The veterans get used to the tyranny of the team sheet.
They have an animal’s instinct for impending indignity.
First, they lose their place in the pivotal pattern of play training sessions.
Before they know it, they are training with the stiffs, and fearing the worst.
It’s the same with managers. A furtive look in the boardroom, from a once friendly director, is all it takes.
Some have to fight for their rights.
It took Jim Magilton two years to get his contract paid up by Ipswich, a club he had served for ten years.
It is a dehumanising process.
Carlo Ancelotti was on the verge of tears at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
He will pick up a small fortune in compensation when he is sacked by Chelsea. Roma will offer him refuge.
But his professionalism has been impugned. His achievements have been treated with contempt.
Money can’t buy self-esteem.
