Unbridled honesty is not always the best public policy for football managers but, by completing a pioneering, confidential, survey, more than 100 leading European coaches have revealed their private views on several controversial subjects. It seems that autocratic, trigger-happy club owners, refereeing anomalies and all consuming obsessions with the job are among the concerns weighing heaviest on their minds.

Sponsored by the League Managers Association and Castrol, the poll offers a fascinating insight into the thoughts of the men who pace technical areas for a living. An overwhelming majority of respondents, 72%, acknowledged that they were "obsessed" by the game, with 59% conceding they struggled to lead a balanced lifestyle.

Howard Wilkinson understands the syndrome. Now the LMA chairman, he won the league title with Leeds United and also managed Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland in addition to serving as the Football Association's Technical Director. Along the way he found himself indulging in a necessary degree of social deception. "There are things you become very, very good at," said Wilkinson. "Particularly in a social situation or, even worse, at home you develop the ability to be seen as engrossed in the conversation but one part of your brain will be thinking about something to do with the club. Managers are obsessed with the game. It's very, very difficult, if not impossible, to live a balanced lifestyle.

"I'll give you an idea of the intensity of the manager's job. The chairmen of the largest companies in the world can cancel an appointment or move a board meeting; a manager cannot change the date of a game. In the combined 42 years that Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger have managed in English football, I can only remember one occasion when Sir Alex did not attend a Manchester United game."

Gérard Houllier, the former France, Liverpool, Lyon and Aston Villa manager, appreciates the compulsion's sometimes destructive power. "You can't switch off," he said. "You can go to the pictures or read a book but football constantly comes back into your mind. It's not a job, it's a life. It takes up your time, thoughts and energy and it can damage relationships with those around you."

The modern breed of uber wealthy, all controlling, club owners were identified as representing one of the main pressures challenging a 21st century manager's sanity. In England the average managerial tenure has decreased appreciably and currently stands at 19 months, as opposed to more than three years in 1992. "A defeat can be a mini-crisis," said Houllier. "Two or three games lost in a row can be a crisis."

Refereeing decisions exert profound influence on managerial security and one of the ideas proposed by the English based respondents was the establishment of a professional referee training academy, to be possibly situated alongside England's new coaching emporium at St George's Park and funded, partly, by the Premier League.

While 83% of contributors believe the handball rule requires further clarification, 65% deemed the triple jeopardy law (penalty, sending off, suspension) an unfair sanction for the denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity. "Often awarding a penalty would be sufficient," said Wilkinson, who believes that new technology must be embraced to assist refereeing decisions but in a non-intrusive way which does not overly affect the game's flow or traditional "smell".

Significantly, 62% of respondents supported the introduction of not just goal-line but also video technology, with 63% stating that football should consider using a decision referral system enabling referees to clarify key incidents.

There is a sense that similar fairness needs to be applied off the field. Managers are often portrayed as spendthrift but 61% expressed a belief that the Uefa financial fair play rules can work and 61% felt there should be a salary cap. Although EU legislation makes a cap unlikely, FFP seems vital, especially as the latest Uefa figures showed that, of 665 clubs, 56% posted losses in 2010, with 78 spending more than 100% of their income on wages.

"Six out of 10 managers in favour of FFP is encouraging," said Wilkinson. "If we don't start to move to a more sensible and moral approach to finance where is it going to end? It's not a bottomless pit. For me it's reform or Armageddon."

Many managers face the shattering of their own worlds in November, traditionally a peak month for sackings as the January transfer window beckons. Although 69% of respondents opposed the current twice-yearly trading frenzies, opinion was split as to the solution. One school of thought promoted by Houllier would like to see a single window operational between the end of one season and the third game of the new campaign.

If it was no shock to learn that 72% of those surveyed favoured reducing international friendlies, the revelation that 56% of English-based managers are against a European style mid-season break proved slightly startling. Perhaps their obsession runs so deep that some coaches simply can't cope with holidays.

Click to view the full inaugural Castrol LMA European Managers Survey