Source: Telegraph
Chelsea face £15m bill for sacking Luiz Felipe Scolari
By sacking the Brazilian just six months into a three-year contract understood to be worth £6.25 million-a-year the club could be liable to as much as £15m in compensation. [LNB]With Scolari following Avram Grant and Jose Mourinho out of the revolving door of the Chelsea managers' office months it could take the total paid to sacked coaches in the last 16 months to £40m. [LNB]Grant, who succeeded Mourinho in Sept 2007¸was sacked in May last year, just five months after signing a four-year contract. [LNB]On Friday Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon is due to publish the club's accounts for the year to July 2008, and while the club is expected to reveal a loss it was thought that much of it would be explained by the one-off payments to Grant and Mourinho that according to estimates could reach a combined £25m. [LNB]The payments to Grant and Mourinho will be described as extraordinary expenditure by the club, with Kenyon likely to insist that the plan of becoming 'operationally independent' of owner Roman Abramovich by the start of next season remains on track. [LNB]The chances of that happening now are likely to have been heavily undermined by Monday's sacking of Scolari. Chelsea have instituted a range of cost-cutting measures across the club, including limiting complimentary ticket allowances to players and cutting budgets in all departments. They are unlikely to be sufficient to cover the one-off payment to Scolari that will not appear until next year's accounts. [LNB]Kenyon's commitment to break even by 2010 is long-standing, but even without the unexpected payment to Scolari it remains an ambitions target. Last year, in accounts to the end of June 2007, Chelsea recorded a loss of £75.8m, a slight reduction on the £80m lost in 2006 and significantly better than the record £140m loss in 2005. [LNB]While the debt may be coming down the need for the club to balance its books has become ever more pressing with the advent of the global financial crisis and its reported impact on Abramovich. [LNB]He is reported to have made paper losses in the billions as a result of stock market volatility in Moscow and London, and club and owner have issued legal proceedings over reports that he is selling the club. [LNB]The club has promised that Friday's accounts will also contain evidence of the owner's long-term commitment to the club, with speculation suggesting that he may be considering changing the terms of his £578m interest-free loans to the club. [LNB]Ironically it may be that the decision to sack Scolari, which carries with it the implicit backing of the owner, may be as clear a sign as supporters could hope for that the Russian remains committed. [LNB]They, and any of the candidates considering replacing Scolari, will be more concerned by the fact that Abramovich, once the most indulgent of patrons happy to let managers and executives build cliques and factions with his money, may be turning into the interventionist many expected would arrive when he collected the keys to Stamford Bridge from Ken Bates five eventful years ago. [LNB]
