The good news is that Jose Mourinho will be kept in curried quail eggs, fine Egyptian silks and After Eights for the time being having already received his full severance pay-out from Manchester United.
The Portuguese coach was sacked in mid-December for enveloping Old Trafford in a cloud of fetid misery, and for falling 19 points behind league leaders Liverpool after a morbid 3-1 defeat at Anfield.
Thankfully, the Mirror report that Mourinho has now been paid up in full by United with a compensation package totalling £15million – and that’s after Mourinho agreed to knock £4million as a compromise.
Why, for that kind of money United could have brought… well, nobody signed during Mourinho’s tenure cost less £19million (Diogo Dalot). In fact, it probably ranks as small change to a man who happily blew through £400million to bring in just 11 players to no discernible effect.
Anyway, the settlement reflects the smidge-under-two-years that he had left to run on his contract, which was extended and improved but one year ago.
It also means that Mourinho is now free to return to management should he so desire, with claims that he has already rebuffed approaches from former clubs Porto and Inter Milan.
Maybe now is the time to finally accept that intriguing job offer from Ibis Sport Club, aka ‘The Worst Club In the World‘ – their self-anointed nickname, not ours.
In the meantime, Jose has already secured himself a bit of busy work to tide himself over for January with the announcement that he’ll be joining the BeIN Sports punditry team out in Qatar for the 2019 Asian Cup.
Wonder if his mood will have improved since the last time he faced the cameras…