£163m to play for in Wembley final

THE huge stakes being played for at Wembley today by Sheffield Wednesday and Hull to gain entry to the world’s richest league have been variously priced at anything between £100million to £200m.

But the Football League now have an official figure of a minimum £163m that today’s Championship play-off final is worth to the winners.

This has been worked out by adding the amount for finishing bottom of the Premier League next season to two seasons’ worth of parachute payments. The rules have been changed so that a club relegated after only one season in the top flight receive two years’ parachute money rather than three. THE most surprising aspect about the long-awaited Manchester United press announcement that Jose Mourinho is the new manager was that it listed his less-than-special playing career in detail — 94 appearances for lowly Portuguese clubs spread over seven years. United say they had no reason not to publish it and Mourinho signed off the release. Meanwhile, it is understood the Glazer family had insisted that however much pressure the club came under to say something earlier in the week, Louis van Gaal be given all the time he wanted to leave for his home in Portugal before his sacking was announced. THE England Cricket Board, who have been in discussions with financially stricken Durham this week, are understood to be prepared to pay around £2.5m to bail out a county £5m in debt because of the suicidal international cricket bidding system.

There is sympathy for Durham’s plight among the counties, especially for their development of England players and the strategic importance of the county in a big catchment area for cricketers. ECB chief executive Tom Harrison (above) said: ‘Everyone wants and needs cricket to flourish in the North East at every level.’ MARTIN BAIN, Sunderland’s new chief executive, worked at Rangers during their chronic financial troubles but the due diligence during Sunderland’s selection process cleared him of any fault.