Again and again, players are considered transfer flops – but financial mistakes can also be made on the coaching bench.
Romelu Lukaku, Danny Drinkwater or Timo Werner: Chelsea FC likes to sign players who cost a lot of money but don’t have any resounding success. But the Blues don’t just treat themselves to exorbitant expenses for their players – the Londoners aren’t stingy on the coaching market either.
The bottom line is that the separation from coach Graham Potter will not be cheap either. Chelsea had paid 17.4 million euros to Brighton & Hove Albion after Thomas Tuchel was kicked out for Potter. The 47-year-old then signed a four-year contract with a salary of over 11 million euros a year. Overall, they were willing to spend over 61 million euros on the Potter package. If you now agree on a lower severance payment than the sum of the outstanding salaries, you end up getting off a little cheaper.
Nevertheless, such a coaching deal can cost a club as much today as just a costly player transfer used to. And so become a major financial risk.
Chelsea had previous experience with an expensive coaching commitment: in 2011 they paid 15 million euros to FC Porto for André Villas-Boas. A year and a half later, the Portuguese split again. With transfers for Potter and Villas-Boas, Chelsea are second and third in the highest paid transfer fees for managers.
Expensive trainers: Julian Nagelsmann in first place
Only one was more expensive in first place: Julian Nagelsmann. FC Bayern paid RB Leipzig a fee of up to 25 million euros for him. Nagelsmann was also over after a year and a half. The 35-year-old, who is currently only on leave at Bayern, still has a valid employment contract until 2026.
Nagelsmann is said to have earned between eight and nine million euros a year with Munich. With a little more than three years of contract left, he would have pocketed more than 24 million euros.
If a Bundesliga club other than Bayern makes a star transfer for its standards, the expenses are usually not as high as the record champions should have spent on the Nagelsmann chapter in the end.
High transfer fees for coaches are even more dangerous than for players. Because the half-life of a coach is often shorter than that of a player. Potter, Nagelsmann and Villas-Boas prove that. Even if a player like Timo Werner doesn’t hit Chelsea, he usually doesn’t lose 100 percent of his resale value. Normally, you do not have to make any salary payments until the end of the contract. Normally, the player simply changes clubs, possibly bringing in a lower fee than the purchase price, but after that you have him off the payroll. After a breakup, trainers usually lose their entire resale value and continue to burden the budget.
Will Bayern get away with a black eye thanks to Chelsea?
Who will be paying a fee for Graham Potter in the near future? Or for Julian Nagelsmann? Moment! Maybe Chelsea will pay a transfer fee for Julian Nagelsmann! Because the German is considered one of the successor candidates for Potter in the Blues. Then Bayern could demand a hefty fee from the English and thus recover part of the immense costs for Nagelsmann. Possibly, Chelsea’s assistant coach Anthony Barry, who Thomas Tuchel would like to bring to Munich, could even be included in the deal.
Wasn’t the Nagelsmann deal so bad financially in the end?
If Bayern negotiated a fee for his ex-coach, you would have gotten away with a black eye. Because you won’t find a club where the money is as easy as it is at Chelsea.
