Welcome to the Premier League... the home of SEM* (*Stupid English Money)
JULEN LOPETEGUI, sacked from his job as the coach of the Spanish national team and then from his role as Real Madrid manager, quite fancies a job in the Premier League.
No surprise there.
Laurent Blanc, who has not worked since leaving Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2016, has recruited agents to help him find a job in the Premier League.
No surprise there.
What coach in his right mind would not want to work in a league where the payday for failure is normally counted in Euro millions?
Back in September 2018, Mourinho had this to say when asked if he thought his position at Old Trafford was shaky.
“They say I’m in danger, but I don’t think it. If they send me away, do you have any idea how much money they would have to give me? Ah, ah.”
Yes, we did have an idea of how much money they would have to give him and that idea was confirmed last week when Manchester United’s a ccounts declared an ‘exceptional item’ of £19.6million.
An ‘exceptional item’ for a selfproclaimed exceptional item.
OK, the Special One did not get the full £19.6m to himself, but after his staff were paid off, you can bet it was in excess of £15m.
That is over £ 15m for eventually getting the very least possible out of this talented United squad.
So what exactly was the point of giving Mourinho an extended contract when he still had a year and a half of his existing deal left to run?
Basically, it is just rich men indulging rich men, and making rich men richer.
Surely the Glazers do not want to be handing out massive severance payments left, right and centre? That is now over £ 30m on managerial redundancy payments since Sir Alex Ferguson vacated the role. But it hardly matters. Over £30m has been taken out of the club in dividends by the Glazers during that time.
And the pay-offs are simply loaded on to the huge United debt.
They must now be giving Chelsea a run for their severance money. Estimates suggest the sackings of Mourinho (twice), Andre Villas-Boas, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Carlo Ancelotti and Antonio Conte have cost Chelsea the best part of £100m.
More than likely, Maurizio Sarri will soon add to that total. Such luc ra t iv e compensation is not just the preserve of the foreign coach, of course.
When Sam Allardyce was shown the door by Everton last year, his golden goodbye took career redundancy to a total in excess of £13m. In any job, compensation for dismissal is only fair. But in Premier League football, it is hitting the jackpot – especially as the sack tends not to hamper the chances of landing another lucrative role.
And another lucrative pay-out. In theory, it should not bother the supporter, other than to cause envy.
But the money has to be found, and it is loaded on to the cost of following your team.
A small hike in ticket prices there, a little increase in the cost of merchandise there.
And what does it do for a manager’s motivation, when he knows the cost of failure is far from painful?
The writing was probably on the United wall when Mourinho joked about how much they would have to fork out to get rid of him.
Referring originally to transfer fees, but now broadened to encompass the general financial excess of the Premier League, the Germans coined a phrase. Stupid English Money. SEM.
No wonder Lopetegui and Blanc want a gig here.