For all the talk about inflated transfer fees in football, you don’t usually hear much about managers moving around for big money.
It’s probably because they all get fired eventually and you can pick them up for free (CC: Brighton if they’re thinking of paying a lump sum for Brendan Rodgers). But still, that rarity of big fees makes such sorting a bit more fun.
Here are the 11 most expensive managers in football history, ranked by how much your new club paid to acquire them.
Shortly before their takeover by the Abu Dhabi United Group in 2008, Manchester City opted to replace Sven-Goran Eriksson with Mark Hughes after his stellar work in making Blackburn semi-regulars in Europe.
City paid Rovers £5 million for the former Manchester United player. He would be fired in the middle of the 2009/10 season and was replaced by Roberto Mancini.
Do you remember when Swansea came to the Premier League and looked like the best Barcelona? Those were the days.
Anyway, Liverpool acted quickly and paid £5 million to get Brendan Rodgers out of the Welsh club. He led the Reds to a Premier League title slip before being replaced by Jurgen Klopp.
Hughes’ spell at Blackburn has some parallels to Ronald Koeman’s at Southampton, with the Dutchman taking the Saints to Europe in similar fashion.
he also cost £5 million when Everton came to call him. Koeman finished seventh, spent a stupid amount of money in the transfer window and was sacked months later.
Chelsea wanted to replace Antonio Conte with a manager who played attractive football, bringing them Maurizio Sarri from Napoli.
Italian cost them £5 millionhe won the Europa League in his only season in west London, then returned to his homeland with Juventus.
Well, this could have gone a little better.
After a decent but hardly groundbreaking period with Eintracht Frankfurt, Borussia Mönchengladbach paid £6.5 million for Addi Hutter.
He left after just one season of finishing 10th in the Bundesliga.
Hello Jose.
After leaving Chelsea at the start of the 2007/08 season, Mourinho took over at Inter the following year. His triumph in the Champions League convinced Real Madrid to terminate his contract for £6.9m.
He wasn’t the man to win ‘La Décima’ for Los Blancos, but beating Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona to the 2011/12 La Liga title was pretty special.
Yes, a little naughty, here.
Ruben Amorim had managed just 13 games in charge of Braga when Sporting CP called, with the Lisbon side coughing. £8.65 million in a big bet.
It paid off, however, as Amorim guided Sporting to their first league title in 19 years in his debut season.
We need to stop meeting like this, Brendan.
After a few years of getting his groove back at Celtic, Rodgers returned to England in 2019 after Leicester paid £9 million for him.
While he will probably be remembered for twice squandering Champions League qualification on the final day of the season, Rodgers led the Foxes to their first FA Cup of 2021.
Hoping that bright young Porto manager Andre Vilas-Boas would be a regen for Mourinho, Chelsea paid £13.3 million to take him to Stamford Bridge in 2011,
It turned out not, but his dismissal led to assistant manager Robert Di Matteo winning the Blues their first Champions League title. So, every cloud…
Chelsea again?
90 minutes understands that the total package to get Potter and his staff from Brighton to Chelsea is in the region of £22m, though only £20 million it will go to the 47-year-old himself.
Still, that’s a lot of money. 10 Michus, so to speak.
But Bayern Munich £21.7 million Taking Julian Nagelsmann out of the hands of RB Leipzig alone remains the world record for a single managerial appointment.
It’s worked out quite well for the Bavarians so far, and you’re hoping the relatively young Nagelsmann can still take them to another level.