Jose Mourinho has earned a staggering £77.5m in pay-offs following latest sacking
Jose Mourinho’s sacking by Tottenham Hotspur means he has now earned £77.5 million from losing managerial jobs during his career — more than £60m of which has come from English clubs.
Including bonuses, Mourinho’s contract at Spurs was worth up to £13m per year — one of the most lucrative managerial deals in history — and was due to run until the end of the 2022/23 season. Chairman Daniel Levy prefers to place sacked managers on gardening leave which, by law, can only last 12 months, although it is believed that Mourinho could be eligible for up to 18 months' worth of salary as compensation. Without bonuses, that would be around £15m-16m.
That represents yet another enormous pay out in a career that has seen Mourinho routinely given astronomical sums to lose his job.
His first severance package came in 2007 when he was paid £18m when given the boot by Chelsea. He then earned £17m from Real Madrid in 2013, £12.5m from Chelsea in 2015 and £15m from Manchester United in 2018.
His removal at Tottenham comes after the continuation of a marked decline in his managerial output over the course of his career. From a 71.65 win percentage at Porto, where he made his name, Mourinho’s win ratio has steadily fallen at every club he has managed, aside from his spell at Real Madrid.
From 67.03 per cent during his first stint in charge at Chelsea, his win percentage fell to 58.33 at Manchester United and he departs Spurs having won little more than half the 86 games he presided over.
That he managed to fulfil so little of his four-year Tottenham contract is also notable.
Not since his short stint at Portuguese side Leira in 2001/02, when he was headhunted for the Porto job, has Mourinho managed so few games at a club (see below table).
Despite regularly suffering his infamous ‘third-season syndrome’, where results declined after time, he still managed more than 100 matches at Porto, Inter Milan, Real Madrid, Manchester United and both Chelsea spells.
Having chosen to leave Porto and Inter Milan of his own accord, his Spurs sacking in fact comes 50 games before he has ever been shown the exit at any other club.
The reasons for such a premature end are not difficult to identify. Tottenham’s 10 league defeats this campaign is the most Mourinho has ever suffered in a single season, while Spurs’ 13 defeats across all competitions is also a career-high.
The only times he has ever averaged fewer than Spurs’ 1.6 points per game — with Chelsea in 2015/16 and Manchester United in 2018/19 — he lost his job.
For someone who built his reputation on developing teams with defensive stability, Mourinho has also seen his Spurs side regularly ship goals at inopportune times.
Only Brighton (31) and Southampton (30) have dropped more than Tottenham’s 27 points from winning positions since Mourinho took charge in November 2019. This season, Spurs top the table for points dropped from winning positions, while they have also conceded 11 goals after 80 minutes of Premier League matches — three more than any other club.
It has all combined to leave Mourinho with an overall league points-per-game tally of 1.64, which is less than his predecessors Tim Sherwood, Mauricio Pochettino, Andre Villas-Boas and Harry Redknapp.
Little more than 20 years after taking his first managerial role, Mourinho’s reputation is lower than ever, but his bank balance is bulging.
