It cost Chelsea more than £26 million to get rid of former manager Antonio Conte and his backroom staff, according to the club’s latest accounts.
Conte, now at Inter Milan, led Chelsea to the Premier League title in his first season in charge, but was dismissed in acrimonious circumstances a year later, in July 2018, with 12 months of his contract still to run.
That took the amount spent in compensation paid to former managers since Roman Abramovich took ownership of the team in 2004 to more than £90 million.
The figures also show that, for the last financial year, the club actually made a loss of £96.6 million, despite Abramovich investing £247 million of his own money in to the club.
Other highlights include the fact that the club’s wage bill increased by £41 million in 2019, despite them not playing in the Champions League during the period in question, and the amount invested in new acquisitions in their playing staff, with £291 million spent on the likes of Kepa Arrixabalaga, Christian Pulisic and Matteo Kovacic.
Andy is an exiled English football fan living in Cyprus. He loves all sports but football is his abiding passion, and he still has dreams every now and then about scoring the winning goal in a Wembley Cup Final, even though his playing days are long gone. He follows most major leagues, across Europe at least, and has a favoured team in each. When he’s not watching, listening, reading or downloading podcasts about football, he spend his time worrying about his beloved Arsenal.