West Ham United’s relegation rivals from North London have a new head coach; Roberto de Zerbi officially appointed as Igor Tudor’s replacement at Tottenham Hotspur.
And if you are wondering how Spurs managed to convince such a highly-regarded manager to take over a team hovering nervously above the relegation zone with only seven games remaining, well, we can offer you 12 million reasons as to why.
It is claimed that Tottenham agreed a £60 million package with Roberto de Zerbi.
How worried should we be about De Zerbi joining Tottenham? 😟
The former Brighton and Hove Albion boss was initially reluctant to take over a club in such a desperate state – ex-West Ham United assistant Edin Terzic had reservations about the Spurs job for similar reasons – but a mammoth, £12 million-a-year, five-season contract was enough to assuage those concerns.
The Mail now reveal that there is no relegation clause in De Zerbi’s deal.
As West Ham know all too well, following the Avram Grant-led relegation of 2010/11, a failure or a refusal to prepare for the drop can have sizeable financial results.
West Ham United’s relegation rivals Tottenham bet the farm on Roberto de Zerbi
Avram Grant’s West Ham finished rock-bottom in 2011. According to The Guardian at the time, his refusal to walk away before their relegation was confirmed eventually saw Davids Gold and Sullivan hit with a pay-off bill totalling £3.5 million.
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Three-and-a-half million for finishing bottom of the Premier League. Nice work if you can get it.
Club legend Tony Cottee felt West Ham paid the price for not sacking Grant far sooner, when survival was still possible. There were presumably big financial reasons why the former Chelsea and Portsmouth boss remained in situ until the final day, departing literally moments after the final whistle.
The absence of a relegation clause in Roberto de Zerbi’s Tottenham contract, then, leaves Spurs in danger of having to fork out an eye-watering pay-off themselves if the Italian cannot arrest an alarming slide. A £12 million manager hired on a five-year deal; Daniel Levy would be quaking at the prospect of having to buy out the remainder of such a contract.
De Zerbi’s Tottenham reign could be over after two months
Speaking to the official Tottenham website, De Zerbi insisted that he arrives with a ‘long-term’ vision in mind. Such promises, in football, are so frequently only paper-thin.
If Spurs do go down – West Ham have accumulated 12 more points than them since Callum Wilson’s winner on January 17th – it would be very hard to imagine a coach as ambitious and highly-regarded as De Zerbi spending a Friday night in a Preston branch of Premier Inn.
It is also hard to imagine Tottenham retaining £15 million-a-year manager in the Championship.
As BBC Sport point out, their revenue could fall by a staggering £250 million in the second-tier. Add in a potential De Zerbi pay-off – he immediately becomes one of the best-paid managers in the whole of the Premier League – and Tottenham’s prospective annual losses could take a sharp turn towards the £300 million mark.
Whatever happens, Roberto de Zerbi is set to become an extremely wealthy man.