Case in point, I know a university case where the professor body wanted to appoint their "own" candidate for a professorship position. The dean and several (majority) professors had already agreed under the table, and the few others didn't matter.

The only problem was they legally had to go through a open contest for the position.

So when someone came up with 5x the qualifications (citations, papers, conferences, better universities attended, etc, globally too) than their ho-hum friend (some relative of the dean), the professor body suddenly folded the position.

A few months later, they announced a new opening, with some specially crafted qualifications, so that only their friend could pass.

I can really see this happening, unfortunately, and I actually did many times. However, Southern bureaucracies are flexible only when they shouldn't be and insurmountably rigid when it's actually good, reasonable, or funny to make an exception. So, no, no extra grade for Watson here. But we might as well create a whole new professional category for the friend of my friend.