Chelsea have appointed Gilbert Enoka, the mental skills coach behind the New Zealand rugby union team’s “no d***heads” policy, to a short-term consultancy role for the next few weeks.
Enoka will be available to all levels of the club and offer his experience of 20 years working with the All Blacks, currently as the manager for leadership having previously been both assistant manager and a mental skills coach.
During his time with New Zealand’s men’s team, they won back-to-back Rugby World Cups in 2011 and 2015.
Enoka’s “no d***heads” policy has been copied and rehashed across various sports after his team went from underachievers to winning their first World Cup in over 20 years.
In March 2017, Enoka explained how he identifies d***heads as people who “make everything about them”.
He said: “We look for early warning signs and wean the big egos out pretty quickly. Our motto is, "if you can't change the people, change the people”.
Central to Enoka’s coaching philosophy is that you can’t be a good team-mate without being a good person off the field.
Having also worked with the New Zealand cricket team and Silver Ferns netball team, his first foray into football will be helping a struggling Chelsea side who remain ninth in the Premier League table.
The former PE teacher will complement Blues boss Graham Potter, who has a Masters degree in leadership and emotional intelligence from Leeds Beckett University and is trying to change the culture around his first team.
Enoka will help him cope with 16 new players and more than £600million worth of signings that have left Chelsea with a sizeable 33-man squad.
Co-owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali will also lean on Enoka to help re-build a corporate culture at Stamford Bridge.
