Text my breath away

By BBC Sport Online's Mike Burnett

There is nothing more frustrating for a football fan than watching the manager of his or her favourite team make the "wrong" decision.

As much as you voice your protestations from the stands or your armchair, your cries go unheard.

But not anymore, not in Finland anyway.

It seems that a group of supporters in the Scandinavian country have recently been given the power to do what every fan dreams of - telling the manager what to do.

Thanks to a new system, fans can tell the boss exactly what they think of player choices, substitutions or tactics during a game by simply sending a text message.

Clearly, some of the worst managerial decisions could have been avoided if this technology had been around sooner.

Then England boss Graham Taylor may never have made that fateful decision to take off Gary Lineker during the crucial 1992 match that ended the nation's European Championship hopes.

Fans could have perhaps directed Ron Atkinson to the correct dugout in 1998 when in his first game in charge of Nottingham Forest, the colourful character sat on Arsenal's bench.

Maybe someone could have warned Graeme Souness, at Southampton at the time, when he was duped into bringing on supposed mate of George Weah, Ali Dia, at The Dell.

And, of course, Bryan Robson might still be at Middlesbrough if there had been some people around to actually tell him about tactics.

The whole idea seems typically Scandinavian in its democratic approach.

The Nordic countries have always been trend-setters in equal rights, establishing democratic parliaments while most other countries were ruled by a crown and sceptre.

They were also among the first to introduce equal votes for women, so maybe it is not surprising they are again at the head of the queue in football managing democracy.

The system was developed by Finnish sports marketing agency Makra, which says the process is simple enough for anyone to have their say.

To become one of the text message managers, fans simply register by sending a SMS message on their mobile phone to a special number.

Then, at certain times, when the team manager has a dilemma about who to pick or what formation to use, he can just put it to a vote by asking the registered fans.

The question is sent out to the fans' phones, who then in turn have to reply within a specified time limit.

While Finnish people seem to be taking to the idea, it remains uncertain whether it can work in other countries.

Certainly, it could be a problem if the text messagers were fans of the opposing side and were trying to scupper the other teams' tactics.

We could see the north London derby with Arsenal fans frantically text messaging bad advice to the Spurs coach, and vice versa.

But chief of new media at Makra, Jani Laitenen, claims this will not be a problem.

"All the alternatives are good. The manager never asks bad questions or bad alternatives," said Laitenen.

Maybe so, but if Sir Alex Ferguson gives fans a choice of Ruud van Nistelrooy or Dwight Yorke, most supporters of other clubs would be happy to leave the Dutch striker warming the bench.