Antonio Conte has won his long-standing legal battle with Chelsea over unfair dismissal.
Conte, who won the Premier League with the West London club in his first season with the club was sacked at the end of the following campaign, just after the players had returned for pre-season training. He had always contended that the manner of his dismissal was illegal, and now a UK court has agreed with him, although the amount of compensation he has been awarded is nothing like what his lawyers had been demanding.
Instead, in a case that was heard last August which Chelsea chose not to contest, he was given a basic award of £1,524, and a contribution to costs of £83,682.
The judgement, which was finally issued last week, does not take into account the compensation paid to Conte and his backroom staff as well, which, according to Chelsea’s latest accounts, totalled £26.1 million, making it the most expensive set of dismissals in Premier League history.
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.