Football: Jose Mourinho earns yet another huge pay-out after being sacked by Tottenham

Tottenham's manager Jose Mourinho looks on before a match. Photo / AP

Jose Mourinho's sacking by Tottenham Hotspur means he has now earned £77.5 million (NZ$150.9m) from losing managerial jobs during his career — more than £60m of which has come from English clubs.

Including bonuses, Mourinho's contract at Spurs was worth up to £13m per year — one of the most lucrative managerial deals in history — and was due to run until the end of the 2022/23 season.

Chairman Daniel Levy prefers to place sacked managers on gardening leave which, by law, can only last 12 months, although it is believed that Mourinho could be eligible for up to 18 months' worth of salary as compensation. Without bonuses, that would be around £15m-16m.

That represents yet another enormous pay out in a career that has seen Mourinho routinely given astronomical sums to lose his job.

His first severance package came in 2007 when he was paid £18m when given the boot by Chelsea. He then earned £17m from Real Madrid in 2013, £12.5m from Chelsea in 2015 and £15m from Manchester United in 2018.

His removal at Tottenham comes after the continuation of a marked decline in his managerial output over the course of his career. From a 71.65 win percentage at Porto, where he made his name, Mourinho's win ratio has steadily fallen at every club he has managed, aside from his spell at Real Madrid.

From 67.03 per cent during his first stint in charge at Chelsea, his win percentage fell to 58.33 at Manchester United and he departs Spurs having won little more than half the 86 games he presided over.

That he managed to fulfil so little of his four-year Tottenham contract is also notable.

Not since his short stint at Portuguese side Leira in 2001/02, when he was headhunted for the Porto job, has Mourinho managed so few games at a club.

Mourinho was hired in November 2019 to replace Mauricio Pochettino, who unexpectedly led the London club to the Champions League final before the team collapsed the following season.

Mourinho failed to get Tottenham back into the Champions League and has overseen another collapse this season. The team was in first place in December but a run of poor results has seen it fall to seventh place.

"Jose and his coaching staff have been with us through some of our most challenging times as a club," Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy said. "Jose is a true professional who showed enormous resilience during the pandemic. On a personal level I have enjoyed working with him and regret that things have not worked out as we both had envisaged. He will always be welcome here and we should like to thank him and his coaching staff for their contribution."

Mourinho's exits comes two days before a Premier League game against Southampton and with the League Cup final on Sunday against Manchester City. Tottenham, which hasn't won a trophy since the 2008 League Cup, said youth coach Ryan Mason had been put in charge of training.

Disgruntlement over his tactics and methods have resurfaced in recent months, with Tottenham slipping out of the Champions League places and getting eliminated from the Europa League in the round of 16 after a surprising 3-0 loss at Dinamo Zagreb.

Tottenham is five points behind fourth-place West Ham, which occupies the final Champions League qualification place. The club has won only one of its last five games.

The two teams above Tottenham — Chelsea and Liverpool — have games in hand.

Tottenham now heads into the League Cup final against City at Wembley Stadium without a manager and probably without its best player, with Harry Kane having hobbled off late in the 2-2 draw at Everton in the Premier League on Friday. That was Mourinho's last game in charge.

- with AP