Talent management rarely hits the headlines here in the UK, but the issue received a considerable airing in the British press this morning.

Luis Felipe Scolari’s appointment as Chelsea manager dominated the back pages, whilst Alan Sugar’s decision to say “you’re hired” to Lee McQueen – the dairyman’s son who lied on his CV and is now preparing to milk Amstrad for all their worth – grabbed the headlines in the nation’s tabloids.

After an exhaustive process – for both candidates and viewers in the case of The Apprentice – both club and company believe they’ve got the right man for the right price. And al though the rarefied atmosphere of the English Premier League and reality TV, are far removed from the rather more down-to-earth world of procurement, the recruitment principles involved in both appointments are remarkably similar to those that go on in boardrooms across the world on the daily basis.

Everyone wants the best person for the job, where experience, charisma and an ability to lead are crucial – and whether you’re earning £100,000 or £4m a year is, in reality, irrelevant.

In football, like procurement, there is a desperate dearth of managerial talent, sending the price for the best candidate sky-high. And, as in procurement, where talent gravitates to the companies with the best reputation (and the deepest wallets) then so the same thing occurs in the beautiful game.

Ironically, after seeing off his competitors McQueen declared: “I delivered. I’m Manchester United.”

If Chelsea’s new man fails to live up to expectations then he could be hearing the words that have made The Apprentice famous, before having had time to find his way from the local tube station to Stamford Bridge (for those who haven’t seen the show those words are “You’re Fired”, delivered with an evil glare and a characteristic point of the Sugar finger, although in Scolari’s case they’ll be uttered by one of the richest men in the world – Roman Abramovich).