The biggest pay-offs from clubs for sacked managers

Nobody appoints a new manager with the plan to eventually sack them but, as we know, it nearly always ends that way.

As with all marriages, first there is the honeymoon period. That’s the wonderful time when there is a new manager bounce, players are receptive to the fresh voice, everything is rosy and even when it’s not it’s definitely, definitely going to be.

Then it comes routine and both parties become a little less forgiving of each other. Occasionally, as we are seeing with Antonio Conte and Tottenham now, it might start getting nasty too.

Eventually, all that is usually left to sort is the divorce bill – the sacked manager pay-off – and some of them are enormous.

Chelsea spent a lot of money to get Villas-Boas from Porto in 2011 and, perversely, they then had to spend bug money to get rid of him too.

The hope was that he would be a new Jose Mourinho, and he has proven himself to be a top coach around Europe, albeit probably not an elite one.

He lasted less than a year in charge, but his squad did win the Champions League that season under Roberto Di Matteo.

Tottenham like to keep their assets tied to lengthy contracts, and that works great as long as the club actually want to keep them.

Pochettino signed a new five-year deal in May 2018 and he looked immovable at Spurs for a very long time.

Just 18 months into that contract though, Spurs decided they wanted rid and they had to pay a whopping sum to escape the contract that they thought would protect them.

Let’s level with you here: there are a lot of Chelsea managers on this list. In fact, it is literally half of them.

Tuchel is the most recent after being shown the door by new owner Todd Boehly when the American claimed they did not share a vision for the club.

Still, given what Boehly has spent since taking over at Chelsea, £13m probably didn’t seem that much.

Premier League clubs certainly dominate this list, but the cost of getting rid of Fabio Capello for Russia was eyewatering by anyone’s standards.

Capello took over the Russian team in 2014 and was supposed to be the man to take them into their home World Cup four years later. He lasted just 18 months.

There are some suggestions he might have received more than the £13.4m that was reported at the time too, but either way it sounds like nice work if you can get it.

Okay, immediately back to Chelsea, it seems….