There’s conflicting info regarding how much severance Tottenham has to pay Mourinho

Jose Mourinho has left Tottenham Hotspur for the now-open position at AS Roma, starting in June, after the end of this current season. The fact that Mourinho landed a job so quickly after being sacked at Spurs is unquestionably good news for Tottenham. The only question now is how much Tottenham now have to pay — and how much they save — for the privilege of having him go away.

Depending on where you’re reading your information, either Spurs have to subsidize the wages of Jose Mourinho until the end of 2022, or only until he officially starts his new job in June.

First, let’s talk about Mourinho’s compensation. His contract, according to Alasdair Gold, was £10.5m/season (earlier reports of £15m/year included escalators that may not apply here) and ran until the end of the 2022-23 season. When Spurs let him go, the put him and his staff on “gardening leave,” wherein they are still obligated to pay him the amount of his contract up until it expires, or he takes another managerial position. There are also reportedly clauses in his contract that have reduced the length that Spurs would need to pay him compensation.

Now, according to Gianluca DiMarzio, Mourinho’s new wages at Roma are at €7.5m/year (£6.4m), but his contract with Tottenham stipulates that they are obligated to pay the difference between his new salary and his Spurs contract — to the tune of £4.1m/year — until June 2022. That’s not great, but it’s certainly better than paying the full amount while Mourinho sits in a talkSPORT studio waiting for a new opening. This also doesn’t factor in any kind of a signing bonus, which may affect these numbers as well.

However, Alasdair Gold in football.london tells a different story.

Mourinho’s quick move will benefit Tottenham financially as football.london understands he was technically placed on “gardening leave” and the club were set to pay his wages for a set amount of time until he found a new role, potentially for up to 18 months.

That he already has found his next job means Spurs are only expected to have to pay the wages of his reportedly £10.5m a year contract for the next couple of months until this summer when he takes the helm at Roma.

That’s where the initial reports from the English media came from that talked about Spurs paying as little as £3m in compensation.

It is interesting, and probably a bit predictable, that the reports of Spurs subsidizing Mourinho’s wages for a year are coming from the Roma side, while the Mourinho-Just-Got-Levy’d reports are coming from Gold, who has close ties to the club. Obviously, the Gold-backed theory is way, WAY better for Spurs financially, and would even go so far as to potentially finance a transfer this summer, if those savings are rolled into the transfer budget.

But regardless of which one turns out to be right (or if it’s somewhere in the middle), this is excellent news for Tottenham. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome with regards to firing Mourinho was the huge severance payout. Whichever way this goes, the club’s just saved some money, and Mourinho’s now Roma’s problem to deal with. That’s okay with me.