IFA's as football teams - is there a correlation?

I was wondering the other day just for a bit of fun, recruiters do have fun you know, if I could come up with any sort of correlation between financial advisers or more specifically IFA's, and Premier league football teams. In between the hours spent in the noble position of assisting people making excellent financial services career decisions I actually came up with, what we at XL-Recruitment thought, were some rather comical ones. Now, the definitions were that there had to be some sort of direct comparison and that it was the top four teams in the Premier league that they had to represent.Well, five including mine!

So we started with the A - The Arsenal of IFA's. The Arsenal IFA is cosmopolitan, probably a city gent and most definitely the most sharply dressed, suave and sophisticated in his firm. His swift and decisive advice although well executed, has often been known to flirt with monetary gain without really making the knockout blow and delivering the result required. Verdict - pretty but doesn't really get the job done!

The Liverpool IFA - The IFA representing Liverpool is a fanatically detailed financial adviser, technically proficient and stable but often labelled conservative and dour, defensive even. Primarily risk averse, he/she will build a usually solid investment portfolio that will immediately collapse if one or two funds go missing for a short period. Verdict - Conservative and perpetually jealous of the neighbouring firm.

The Manchester Utd of Financial Advisers or IFA's is a big swaggering giant of an IFA, arrogant and sure of his/her own ability. The Manchester Utd adviser has a cosmopolitan flavour with a gritty northern foundation, they will be suave with a steely determination to win and they are ultra competetive. They will quite often get down and dirty in order to get ahead, have a flagrant disregard for authority and you can guarantee, they will be the adviser in the firm doing the mega sized pensions transfer cases. Verdict - Champion in his/her own lifetime, arrogant to the nth degree but unfortunately, bloody good at what they do!

The Chelsea IFA - The Chelsea IFA or financial adviser is a returnee to the financial services fold. Probably a financial adviser that was once 'top of the class' although he/she might have that jaded, hangdog look of the 'almost but never quite got there'. An IFA that builds functional, yet fluid investment portfolios, they work with solid foundations and are usually always lucky enough to get the result, even if it is in the last minute. Verdict - sturdy performer, works well within a system but not so well on their own.

Now, as a Tottenham supporter myself I absolutely have to include my team. So, here we go: The Tottenham IFA is an IFA or financial adviser who harks back to the glory, glory era when they worked in 'tied' home service and their slick moves could bamboozle the punters and the opposition alike ensuring that they quite often topped the tables and won awards. Nowadays, they are bitter, often reminded by bigger and better neighbours of what used to be. An inability to plough funds into their practice at the right time and keep up with the industry has meant that the Tottenham IFA has had to watch as the rest of the world have caught up and even passed him/her by. Verdict: Bitter and constantly tells anyone who will listen how good they used to be.

If any of you professional financial advisers or IFA's out there want to include your teams or your comparisons, please feel free to add comments, it would be a welcome addition to just me writing and it would be funny I'm sure to see some of them like Bolton or West Ham, so come on, get those comments in.