What’s the story?
Chelsea's accounts for the 2015-16 season reveal that the club paid ex-manager Jose Mourinho and his staff a total of £8.3m as compensation money after his sacking.
It was a bad year for owner Roman Abramovich as the Blues incurred a total loss of £70.6m in spite of a record turnover of £329.1m and player sales profit worth £49m in the financial year. The amount includes the £67m Chelsea paid kit-manufacturers Adidas to terminate their contract six years early.
Trending
In case you didn't know...
After a miserable start to last year's campaign, Jose Mourinho was finally sacked in December 2015 after a 2-1 defeat to eventual champions Leicester City. The 'Special One' had reportedly lost the dressing room at Stamford Bridge as the club statement read that the sacking was caused because of a 'palpable discord' with the players.
Guus Hiddink came in as the interim manager and somehow steadied the ship as Chelsea finished tenth, their worst result in recent years.
The heart of the matter
This is not the first time the London club have had to pay Jose Mourinho and his staff huge compensation money after sacking them. When Jose was removed from his managerial position the first time, after two fruitful years where Chelsea won back-to-back Premier League titles, Mourinho and co. were in fact paid £23.1m as compensation.
Coming back to the matters at hand, in a document available at Companies House, Chelsea refer to “termination payments and compensation totalling £8.3m in relation to the changes in the first-team management during the year”.
Chelsea's accounts also reveal that they incurred a considerable loss of £67m because of the termination of the contract with Adidas six years early. They have consequently signed a new deal with Nike worth £60m a year which will run for the next 15 years.
What’s next?
Roman Abramovich must have got used to paying huge severance fees to his managers. With as many as seven first-team coaches sacked in the past decade, if Antonio Conte doesn’t have a huge severance package in his deal, he must sign a new contract at once.
Sportskeeda’s Take
While the loss incurred by Chelsea is not new, the season gone by has been terrible for the London-based club as there was no success to compensate for it. Jose Mourinho’s sacking and the compensation money he got only proves the Chelsea method of not giving managers stability to build a team for long-term success is faulty at best.
This needs to change as they cannot continue to incur losses the way they have in recent years.
