KEY POINTS:
John Terry has signed the most lucrative deal in the history of English football, with a £135,000-a-week contract with Chelsea that will earn him a staggering £35m ($93m) over five years.
The England captain is now the highest-paid defender in the world and has raised the bar in
Premiership salaries to new heights. The 26-year-old has been in negotiations for a new deal for the past year and talks were brought to an unexpectedly swift conclusion yesterday.
Terry's previous deal, worth around £80,000-a-week, would have had two years left to run come November. His new deal surpasses the £130,000- a-week paid to Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack at the top-end of the Chelsea pay-scale.
Nevertheless, Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon is still to secure the future of Frank Lampard, who now has less than two years left to run on his deal and appears no closer to signing. It would be inconceivable that Lampard, 29, would be offered less than Terry, although it is understood the midfielder has found it difficult to make up his mind and is still entertaining the idea of a move to Spain.
A potential new club for Lampard would be able to buy out the last two years of his contract and sign the player for around £9m, the equivalent of his remaining two years' salary.
That would also have been an option for Terry in January but the prospect of him leaving the club was always remote given his status at Chelsea among the players and fans.
It would be fair to say no other club in the world would pay more than £7m a year in salary to a defender but then no other club in the world could ever value Terry as highly as Chelsea. A Barking boy whose family were staunch West Ham fans, he has been at Chelsea since the age of 14 and remains the strongest link between the supporters and a club that has changed beyond recognition in the past four years.
The negotiations have not always been simple and Terry has stood firm in pursuit of a figure he felt reflected his status. The poor debut season endured by Shevchenko - and an average one from Ballack - have made Terry and Lampard even more determined that their deals should beat those of their team-mates.
Terry enjoys a close relationship with club owner Roman Abramovich, who has done nothing to discourage his aspirations to manage the club one day. The Chelsea captain and his agent Aaron Lincoln walked away from the talks in March when Kenyon told them a nine-year deal was not an option. It is understood some of the club's hierarchy had previously suggested they might get the player on a longer-term deal.
Terry's contract has been a political issue at Chelsea, especially in February when Jose Mourinho claimed his captain would sign only if he knew his manager was staying. It placed Terry in a difficult position between his manager and the Abramovich camp, who were in opposition at the time.
Terry said yesterday he had never wanted to leave Chelsea. "I'm really happy this has been concluded. There has been a lot of speculation but these things take time," he said. "I never had any doubts that I wanted to stay and that the club wanted me to stay.
"I hope the fans can see we are all trying to build something special here and I want to be a part of that. Now it's time to look forward to the new season, which we are all very confident about."
With income from television revenue to be £900m a year for the 20 Premiership clubs for the next three years, Terry's deal reflects the fact that salaries have moved on to a new level. Last season, Cristiano Ronaldo signed a new deal worth £120,000-a-week at Manchester United and increasingly the top players at clubs are moving on to contracts worth six figures a week.
However, it tends to be the attacking players who get the bigger salaries. Craig Bellamy's wages are understood to have doubled to £80,000-a-week after leaving Liverpool for West Ham.
- The Independent
