The £30m man: London clubs count cost of Villas-Boas
FOOTBALL manager Andre Villas-Boas cost Tottenham and Chelsea a combined outlay of close to £30m in less than two-and-a-half years in England.
The Portuguese’s 17-month tenure at Spurs ended yesterday when he was sacked, just hours after losing 5-0 to Liverpool in the Premier League club’s worst home defeat for 16 years.
Villas-Boas is thought to have cost Tottenham around £10m in total, comprising £6m in wages plus a pay-off that was written into his contract. The 36-year-old was even more costly for Chelsea, who paid £13.3m to release him from his contract at Porto in the summer of 2011.
They handed him a three-year contract worth £5m annually which, despite sacking him less than nine months later, they were obliged to continue paying until he took a new job. Tottenham currently sit seventh in the Premier League, having finished fifth last year, but could have climbed to within five points of leaders Arsenal had they beaten Liverpool on Sunday.
They have struggled in attack, scoring less than a goal a game in the top flight since selling star player Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for a world record £85m in August.
Former England boss Fabio Capello is among the bookmakers’ favourites to succeed Villas-Boas while Spurs coach Tim Sherwood has been placed in temporary charge for tomorrow’s Capital One Cup quarter-final against West Ham.