Comments on: Football Clubs Need to Think About Prenups for Managers

By: y3 shoes

y3 shoes — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:36:22 +0000

You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with

By: Paul Da-silva

Paul Da-silva — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:34:45 +0000

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By: Daryl

Daryl — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:42:45 +0000

I suppose one thing I hadn’t considered when writing the above post is that when coaches/managers get fired, it’s kind of an arbitrary decision. It’s not like they’re being fired because they were embezzling the club’s money or something (not the majority of them anyway)

So if managers received zero money after being fired, then they could possibly sue for unfair dismissal. Mancini is a great example, as he’d just won Serie A when Inter got rid of him.

But would it be too outlandish to suggest there should be some sort of clause in a manager’s contract that says “if the club fires you because the club thinks the team is under-performing, then you only receive %10 of the remaining wages on your contract.” Or something.

By: vespo

vespo — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:34:18 +0000

This is pretty common with major sports contracts. The Cleveland Browns (NFL) are paying millions to their general manager, Phil Savage, that they fired last year. Major college football programs routinely have rich boosters (supporters) put up the money necessary to buy out the remaining years on a coach’s contract if they wish to fire him.

By: alessio

alessio — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:12:36 +0000

It’s desperation from the clubs, these managers are in very high demand so they sign them at a high pay for longer than they want. Perhaps today a manager signed on a 2-year contract would just cause instability. The clubs could put in performance clauses into the contracts giving them the right to sack at a lower price, though. Manager pay is getting amusing though, Mancini was unbelievably overpaid and Mourinho, his replacement, makes more than any player in Serie A. Is he doing 15x the job Ciro Ferrara or Leonardo?

Special praise should be given to Luciano Spalletti, who after a crap start to the season, realized his tenure at Roma was probably up. While he could have forced Roma to sack him and get a nice severance package, he honorably chose to resign and thus left cash-strapped Roma several million euros that in all likelihood will soon hand over to their crippled captain.

By: alex w

alex w — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:11:55 +0000

or they could just sign one year deals. which i’m sure the coaches would not like, but the teams are the ones paying the salaries, so they could just force them to take that kinda contract.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:07:03 +0000

Adding performance standards is an interesting contractual condition– and they are frequently used with football clubs in the form of bonuses (win this trophy and you get X amount of money, etc). Performance standards are really annoying to deal with in litigation though– both sides go back and forth on the costs of measuring X, (2) the accuracy of estimating X, (3) the extent to which managers can influence the level of X and what should be used to establish a base line measurement.

Plus– managers would be less likely to agree to those contractual standards, and if they did they would argue that the higher risk means they should get a larger salary, etc. My point being is that these cause other financial tradeoffs.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:01:41 +0000

Severance packages are typical in most high-end job markets. They typically some with several strings and conditions– such as confidentiality clauses and restrictions on where they can work in the near future (typically geographic restrictions– i.e. you can not be our competitor in this state or county). When the original contract is signed, the contract is used to protect both the employer and the employee– if the manager wanted to leave to pursue another job opportunity he would also have to buy out his contract (which is basically what the club is doing– buying out the coach’s contract). Ultimately, you hope that the new deal will bring in more revenue (or trophies) to justify the expense of ditching the previous coach. In a lot of ways, these situations are better for the club than the manager– in most situations, the manager would never be able to buy out their contract (too much for an individual), but bearing that expense is easier for the club. In these situations, the manager would most likely ask their new employer to buy out their contract for them (or at least a portion).

You see this in the context of business agreements a lot. Such as when teams may decide to buy out their deal with one shirt company in order to accept a more lucrative deal with another sponsor.