Football boss paid £4m to do nothing
Man Utd’s astonishing deal to trap Mourinho – and now they’ll hand him £15m a year contract
IN the crazy world of football finance – where top players can hope to rake in £300,000 a week – you would think that little could still surprise.
But even former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho must have been a bit taken aback when he was paid an estimated £4million – for doing nothing.
It is understood that although he is not expected to be officially confirmed as the new Manchester United manager until tomorrow, he has actually been on the Old Trafford club’s payroll for months.
Mourinho, who won the Premier League three times in two spells at Chelsea, where he referred to himself as the ‘Special One’, has been receiving the astonishing payout simply for agreeing not to take a job at another club while United decided on the future of current boss Louis van Gaal.
The Portuguese coach now stands to earn a further £75million over the next five years.
Van Gaal is set to lose his job despite guiding Manchester United to the FA Cup at the weekend – the club’s first major trophy since Sir Alex Ferguson retired three years ago. Mour- inho, 53, who was sacked by Chelsea in December, is expected to sign a £15milliona-year deal at Old Trafford, which will see him once again become one of the world’s highest paid managers.
The Daily Mail understands that United reached an agreement with Mourinho early this year to ensure he would be able to take over from van Gaal should the Dutchman be deemed a failure. Following these clandestine meetings, it is believed he was paid the astonishing sum of money.
Although van Gaal masterminded United’s 2-1 win over Crystal Palace on Saturday, ensuring the club won the FA Cup for a record-equalling 12th time, the team failed to qualify for the Champions League.
Rumours were rife during the game that he would lose his job to a man who worked for him at Barcelona in the 1990s.
Despite the news that he has finally landed a lucrative deal for a role he has long coveted, Mourinho refused to smile for photographers outside his London home yesterday.
His agent and close friend Jorge Mendes is understood to be arriving in England tomorrow to conclude negotiations.
However, executives at Old Trafford seem to harbour some concerns about their new appointment, having sought to include a ‘behaviour clause’ in his contract.
The clause was intended to curb Mourinho’s often-erratic touchline behaviour, but he is said to have flatly refused it. His final few months at Chelsea, after winning the Premier League last year, were clouded in controversy.
He came in for criticism after berating Chelsea club doctor Eva Carneiro for running on to the pitch to treat a player.
She left her post after he subsequently suggested she didn’t understand the game.
JOSE MOURINHO was paid a staggering £4million by Manchester United not to take a job elsewhere while they decided the future of Louis van Gaal.
An agreement was reached midway through the season to give United the option of bringing him in if Louis van Gaal failed to meet their targets.
Sportsmail can also reveal that Mourinho refused to accept a ‘behavioural clause’ in his five five-year, year, £75m deal despite concerns among the United hierarchy about his eccentric touchline behaviour. The 53-year- old was fined £229,900 and received two stadium bans during his two spells at Chelsea and United are desperate to avoid the negative publicity those incidents generated.
However, Mourinho refused to agree to the clause during negotiations in January, relying on his strong bargaining position as United’s season unravelled. Unlike Manchester City’s pre- contract deal with Pep Guardiola, the
unique arrangement with Mourinho was merely to ensure he would be available if required. Had Van Gaal been deemed to have been a success, by whatever criteria United laid down, he would have stayed for the last year of his contract. The deal was first reported by Spanish newspaper El Pais in March.
As it is, former Chelsea manager Mourinho will have £200m to spend on new players as United, who lifted the FA Cup on Saturday, plot a route back to the top of the English game after missing out on a top-four spot for the second time in three seasons.
United hope to have their transfer business completed by the end of Euro 2016 to ensure their manager has his squad in place when they return to training.
The club wanted to keep the agreement with Mourinho secret from Van Gaal, who was his boss at Barcelona, but by yesterday the United hierarchy were left embarrassed by another PR own goal.
The fact Van Gaal knew he had lost his job within minutes of winning the FA Cup is considered by senior figures as more shameful than the departure of David Moyes, who learned of his own dismissal from media reports before executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward had the opportunity to inform him personally.
At Wembley on Saturday it was Van Gaal’s wife Truus who told him she had seen the story on the BBC website shortly before he was due to give his post-match press conference. Mrs Van Gaal was said to be extremely upset, which would explain the tetchy nature of the exchanges her husband then had with the media. He is also understood to be furious with his Old Trafford afford employers.
News of Mourinho’s appointment, which is expected to be confirmed tomorrow, was not leaked by United. But Woodward will face questions about how Van Gaal’s moment of triumph was marred by such public humiliation.
Once again the pressure will be on Woodward to appoint a more experienced director of football to handle football matters while he retains control of off-the-field business.
Van Gaal had a meal with his coaching staff on Saturday night and will now prepare to leave Manchester, with a future role at the club considered extremely unlikely given his anger at the situation.
The Dutchman and his wife had immersed themselves in life in Manchester. They were regulars at restaurants in the Cheshire village of Hale, while Truus had become an active member of local sports clubs.
Last night the future of Ryan Giggs was still unclear. He will be disappointed not to have succeeded Van Gaal but club insiders believe he wants to stay at United and hope the prospect of working with Mourinho will keep him at Old Trafford. The players would like Giggs to stay, given the central role he plays. When they have 11 v 11 practice two days before a game it is Giggs who organises the opposing team to mirror the side United will face. He also works directly with the players on set-pieces.
Woodward, it is understood, met Mourinho in London yesterday with a view to confirming the appointment tomorrow.
By yesterday sources were providing some insight into why it was felt United had to make a change, and not just because of their failure to qualify for next season’s Champions League. The relationship between Van Gaal and his players had become fractured, with senior players exasperated as much with his failure to control the younger professionals as they were with some of his methods.
Requests not to post their personal videos of the Upton Park bus attack on social media were ignored, while there was a suspicion among some members of the dressing room that players were pulling out of games simply because ‘ they didn’t fancy it’, only to train the next day. Van Gaal’s insistence on playing a more regimented style of football became a problem for some of the flair players, with one senior pro telling the Dutchman he intended to play his natural game because following orders would result in him being dropped again. David de Gea, as revealed last week, would have asked to leave Old Trafford had Van Gaal been allowed to remain in charge for a third season.
Some of the players would certainly like Mourinho to shake things up a little. Stories of younger professionals asking catering staff to boil them an egg to take home is one measure of how soft the environment has become since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.
The players would also like Mourinho to challenge Woodward over commercial demands. After they suffered that crushing 3-2 defeat at West Ham at the end of the season, the players had to report to Old Trafford the next morning to drive miniature Chevrolets around the car park.
Mourinho has already identified the players he wants to sign ahead of his arrival, with 23-year-old Sporting Lisbon midfielder Joao Mario one of his principal targets.