Forest Green Rovers Want Football Without a Manager. But Who Holds the Power?

Editorial disclosure: The Pyramid has a commercial sponsorship relationship with Peterborough United, the club that appointed Robbie Savage. This relationship has no bearing on our editorial coverage.

Dale Vince has spent more than a decade challenging football’s established conventions. At Forest Green Rovers, that has meant renewable energy, plant-based catering, an environmental identity extending well beyond the pitch and plans for a timber stadium. Now the club’s owner is questioning something more fundamental: whether a football team needs a manager at all.

Following Robbie Savage’s departure for Peterborough United, Forest Green have decided against immediately appointing a replacement. Instead, Jonathan Gould, Yan Klukowski and Josh Bowen are overseeing the first team. Vince told BBC Radio Gloucestershire that the club was not interviewing candidates and did not currently consider itself to have a managerial vacancy.

His explanation went further than maintaining continuity after an unexpected departure. Vince questioned football’s reliance on powerful managerial personalities, referring to managers with big egos and expressing doubt that such arrangements necessarily produce the best decisions. He suggested that Forest Green’s existing coaches, who already undertake much of the daily work, could deliver a more balanced approach.

The distinction matters. Forest Green are not simply leaving a position vacant while conducting a recruitment process. Their chairman is questioning the concentration of sporting authority in one individual.

The experiment is not necessarily permanent. Vince has suggested assessing the arrangement over several matches or perhaps a month. But the decision creates an immediate governance question: if the manager no longer has the final say, who does?

Savage’s departure was not a dismissal

The circumstances surrounding Savage’s exit matter because Forest Green did not announce a managerial restructuring before Peterborough approached him.

On 28 September, Forest Green confirmed through Jonathan Gould that Savage had permission to speak to another club. The following day, chairman Dale Vince identified Peterborough United as the interested party, confirmed Savage had been offered the position and said negotiations over his departure were under way.

Vince also attributed Savage’s wish to leave to personal reasons. That explanation was offered alongside confirmation of an approach from another club; Forest Green did not elaborate on the personal circumstances involved. Peterborough subsequently announced Savage’s appointment on 2 October on a long-term contract.

Savage had guided Forest Green to seventh place in the National League in 2025–26, but the club failed to secure promotion. His departure came during a difficult start to the following season, with Forest Green struggling to reproduce the form expected of a club seeking a return to the EFL.

The timing makes the decision more consequential. Vince is not experimenting with collective management after promotion or during an extended period of stability. He is doing so while the club is under pressure to improve results.

The director of football was there before Savage

The three-man coaching arrangement is only part of Forest Green’s football structure. The more significant appointment took place before Savage even arrived.

Mark Bowen was appointed director of football on 10 June 2025, three weeks before Savage took charge on 1 July. The club therefore did not create a senior football executive position in response to his departure. It had already established one, and that position has now outlasted the manager appointed alongside it.

Bowen brought experience from Reading and a lengthy career in senior coaching and football operations. His appointment created a permanent football executive position separate from the first-team manager, establishing a structure in which recruitment strategy and daily coaching could operate as distinct responsibilities.

There is already evidence that Bowen plays an active role in recruitment. On 9 October, Forest Green announced the signing of defender Tom McIntyre on a short-term contract until January 2027. Bowen publicly explained the need for defensive reinforcement and referred to his previous experience working with the player at Reading.

That establishes involvement in identifying and assessing players. It does not establish whether Bowen has the final say over transfers, contracts or the allocation of the playing budget.

Forest Green’s published structure also identifies Claire Thorley as head of football operations, Asif Rehmanwala as executive vice-chairman and Dane Vince, Dale Vince’s son, as chief executive. The existence of these positions demonstrates that the club already distributes administrative and football responsibilities across several senior figures. It does not establish how disagreements are resolved.

The missing information is the allocation of final authority. Who selects the starting eleven if the coaches disagree? Who decides substitutions? Can Bowen overrule a recruitment recommendation? Who approves contract commitments, and at what level does a decision require executive or ownership approval?

Those are not theoretical distinctions. Recruitment decisions create financial commitments that may outlast the individuals who recommend them. Team selection and tactics affect results, promotion prospects and the value of players under contract.

A collective structure can work without a conventional manager, but only if the people involved understand which decisions they control and which they must refer elsewhere.

Forest Green have not publicly established that division in sufficient detail to answer those questions.

One owner, a different philosophy of control

There is an interesting contradiction at the heart of Forest Green’s experiment. Vince is questioning whether football decisions are best entrusted to one powerful individual, arguing instead for a more balanced, collective approach. Yet the club itself remains under highly concentrated ownership, with Vince exercising ultimate control through its corporate structure.

Companies House identifies Forest Green Rovers Football Club Limited, company number 06748691, as the operating company. Its active person with significant control is Ecotricity New Ventures Limited, company number 11099389, which holds at least 75% of the shares and voting rights and possesses the right to appoint or remove directors. Companies House identifies Dale Vince as the person with significant control of Ecotricity New Ventures Limited.

This is corporate control, not proof of personal involvement in individual football decisions. A controlling shareholder can delegate recruitment, coaching and selection authority while retaining responsibility for the club’s overall direction. There is nothing inherently inconsistent about doing so.

But the distinction between delegating decisions and relinquishing control is central to the experiment. Vince can challenge the traditional concentration of power in the dugout while retaining the ultimate ownership authority to determine the club’s broader direction.

Forest Green’s experiment will reveal much more about the former than the latter.

The financial reality behind the experiment

Forest Green’s latest accounts provide important context for the managerial decision. The club is not operating in a financial vacuum, and the economics of a third consecutive National League season are materially different from those of its recent years in the EFL.

The latest statutory accounts cover the year ended 30 June 2025 and were filed on 29 January 2026. The next accounts, covering June 2026, are due by 31 March 2027.

Local financial reporting of the 2025 statements indicates that Forest Green remained substantially loss-making, although losses had moderated from the preceding year. The complete statements require line-by-line reconciliation before precise wage, revenue, shareholder funding and related-party figures can be used in a definitive financial assessment.

More revealing is a statement Vince made in July 2026 about the club’s wider football operations.

Explaining cuts affecting Forest Green’s women’s team and youth programmes, Vince said that entering a third National League season meant losing the remaining benefit of parachute payments. He put the resulting reduction in income at £1.5 million and said that the club had reviewed expenditure to prioritise a return to the EFL.

He also attributed the decision affecting the women’s team to the breakdown of a proposed arrangement with Hartpury, saying that continuing independently would require six-figure expenditure. Those were the chairman’s explanations for the cuts, rather than independently audited cost assessments.

The statement is relevant because it establishes that financial constraints are influencing Forest Green’s operating decisions, including programmes outside the men’s first team.

It does not establish that the managerless experiment is intended to save money.

The club continues to employ coaches, a director of football and senior football executives. Any saving from not appointing a conventional manager would depend on remuneration, contractual arrangements and whether additional responsibilities require additional resources.

There is a more important financial question. If the director of football and coaching group collectively influence recruitment, who carries responsibility for spending decisions and their consequences?

The legal responsibility for contractual commitments ultimately rests with the relevant employing or contracting entity, subject to the arrangements in place. Operational accountability, however, depends on how authority is delegated internally.

At Forest Green, that distinction deserves as much attention as the absence of a manager.

Eco Park and the owner’s longer-term strategy

Vince’s influence over Forest Green is most visible in the club’s environmental identity and infrastructure ambitions.

The proposed Eco Park development near Junction 13 of the M5 combines a 5,000-seat timber stadium with training facilities and a wider commercial development associated with green technology. Ecotricity’s plans have included substantial office and industrial space alongside the football facilities.

The stadium project has progressed through successive planning stages, although the wider development has faced a lengthy approval process. In February 2026, revised proposals were under consultation, including employment space, hospitality and other supporting uses.

The distinction between the football club and the wider development is financially important. Land held by a connected company is not automatically a football club asset, while projected benefits to the local economy cannot be treated as income available for player wages.

Eco Park illustrates how Forest Green’s strategy extends beyond football results. Vince has pursued a long-term vision incorporating environmental positioning, commercial development and sporting ambition. The financial success of those different activities should nevertheless be assessed separately.

The managerial experiment is considerably smaller in scale, but it raises a similar governance question: which decisions are made by the football club’s executives and which ultimately require the owner’s approval?

Results are already testing the theory

Forest Green’s immediate footballing circumstances offer little room for an extended experiment without scrutiny.

On 10 October, Hartlepool United won 4–2 at The New Lawn. Forest Green had recovered from three goals down to trail 3–2 before Nathan Sheron’s second goal secured the visitors’ victory. Both clubs confirmed the result in their official match reports.

The defeat left Forest Green 16th in the National League, with four victories from 12 matches and no league win in five.

For a club that reached League One in 2022 before suffering successive relegations back into non-league football in 2024, another season outside the EFL carries sporting and financial consequences.

The coaching group inherited the squad and its recent form. Two matches cannot establish whether a different management structure is succeeding or failing. Equally, the absence of a conventional manager does not remove the expectation that performances should improve.

Under a traditional arrangement, the manager is the obvious individual held accountable for tactics, selection and results. Forest Green are testing a system in which those responsibilities may be distributed.

The question is whether accountability is distributed with them, or whether it becomes harder to identify.

Why this matters beyond Forest Green

The wider English football pyramid contains many clubs where ownership, funding and sporting authority are concentrated in relatively few hands. Others have adopted director-of-football structures that separate recruitment strategy from daily coaching.

Neither model is automatically superior. The effectiveness of either depends on the people involved, the resources available and the clarity of decision-making responsibilities.

Forest Green’s experiment is unusual because Vince has explicitly challenged the conventional managerial hierarchy while retaining a concentrated ownership structure.

It also raises questions about financial accountability. A club may distribute responsibility for recruitment and tactics, but the consequences of poor decisions still appear in results, contracts and ultimately its accounts.

For supporters, understanding who makes those decisions is a legitimate part of understanding how their club is run.

The same principle applies whether the club is competing in the Championship or at the bottom of the National League System.

What to watch

The immediate issue is whether Forest Green formalise the responsibilities of their three coaches and Mark Bowen, or continue with an informal arrangement. The next significant recruitment decision may offer evidence of how the structure operates, although a public announcement alone will not necessarily reveal who authorised it.

The club’s next financial statements should also provide a clearer picture of the costs associated with its continued National League membership and the extent of financial support required.

For now, the most important unanswered questions concern final authority over team selection, recruitment and contracts. The precise allocation of those responsibilities has not been publicly established.

The Bottom Line

Forest Green Rovers have not demonstrated that football clubs no longer need managers. They are testing whether an existing coaching group, supported by a director of football, can fulfil the responsibilities traditionally concentrated in one individual.

Dale Vince’s argument is that decisions may improve when they are not dominated by a single managerial personality. It is an interesting proposition from the owner of a club whose corporate control remains firmly concentrated.

That does not invalidate the experiment. A controlling shareholder can delegate sporting authority without surrendering ownership control, and a collective coaching structure can operate within a conventional corporate hierarchy.

But it does leave the central question unanswered.

Forest Green may no longer want one dominant figure in the dugout. Whether that means football decisions are genuinely more widely shared — or simply that the final authority has moved elsewhere — is what the experiment must establish.