Since Klopp became Liverpool manager, more than £40 million has been spent on compensation for sacked Chelsea managers.
Chelsea parted ways with head coach Thomas Tuchel on Wednesday morning as the new ownership of Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital moved swiftly to address their poor start to the season.
Having spent some £270m in the transfer market under Tuchel in the summer, adding the £75m signing of Wesley Fofana from Leicester City only last week, Boehly and his co-owners made the call to part ways with the German following Chelsea’s surprise 1-0 loss in the Champions League at Dinamo Zagreb on Tuesday.
That defeat came on the back of what has been a slow start to the campaign for Stamford Bridge club, the heavy investment in the likes of Raheem Sterling, Marc Cucurella, and Fofana yielding 10 points from their opening six games. That haul, however, was enough to see them sixth and one place ahead of Liverpool.
What Jurgen Klopp has achieved at Liverpool and his importance to how every facet of the football operation works at the club means that nobody is asking questions about his future. Liverpool’s slow start has arrived through a mixture of different challenges, the midfield injury crisis atop of that particular list.
There have been just six Premier League games played and few would have predicted Tuchel to be the first to lose his job, mainly after Chelsea smashed the British record for transfer window spending only last week.
But the decision has shown that Boehly and his co-owners expect results swiftly on the back of their huge investment, an investment that they have viewed as being key to ensuring they are competing both domestically and in Europe to allow them to grow the brand globally and deliver greater revenue streams, particularly in the US, with Boehly believing that Premier League clubs are underdeveloped assets with far more revenue potential.
Sackings don’t come cheap, though. Tuchel was in situ when the new owners arrived, and only last month there had been reports of them being impressed and seeking to extend his deal beyond 2024. Instead, they are terminating his original deal two years early.
Tuchel, reported to be earning around £7m per year, could be in line for a pay-off of £14m based on rough estimates. But even with the allowance of wriggle room either way the figure on what Chelsea has spent on disposing of underperforming managers since Klopp arrived at Liverpool back in October 2015 will likely break through the £40m mark.
The huge sums paid out to show the importance of strategy in getting the key appointments right, as Liverpool did with Klopp and Manchester City did with Pep Guardiola.
Sacking Antonio Conte in 2018 cost them more than £26m in severance, while Frank Lampard’s was reported to be around £2m. Guus Hiddink only served as interim boss while Maurizio Sarri left Chelsea directly for Juventus.
The compensation for Tuchel means that, on top of the heavy outlay on player wages seen during the summer, the 2022/23 financial accounts will have to take another significant hit.
According to financial forecasts for the 2021/22 financial year by analysts at sports business website Off The Pitch, Chelsea could post losses of around £86m after tax when they publish their results later this year or early next.
Chelsea was one of four English clubs to appear on UEFA’s Financial Fair Play watchlist earlier this month.
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