Chelsea's Pursuit of Andre Villas-Boas Shows There Is a Market For Managers

We've all had those emails, usually from Nigeria, where people ask for money to be deposited into their accounts in return for riches to follow. Chelsea must be hoping that is the case with Andre Villas-Boas

after sending him the finance on trust.
According to reports, Chelsea advanced the Portuguese 15 million Euros to buy himself out of his managerial contract with Porto. Fortunately he paid it over rather than abscond, as those email chancers would if anyone was daft enough to send them the dosh.

How come Chelsea did business that way? It may well have had something to do with the impending FIFA financial fair play rules, or rather a possible way of getting round them. It may be that manoeuvring money around without it having to go down in accounts as part of salary expenditure will be a new strategy for the big clubs of Europe.

We can certainly expect some creative accounting over the next couple of years, with more income arriving in the shape of sponsorship and stadium naming, possibly from companies associated with the owners of some of the big English clubs.

Certainly paying all that money for Villas-Boas's release shows that something new is happening. Indeed, there seems to be a transfer system for managers developing.

Once, managers were on far less money than players and compensation for them should they move in mid-contract was largely bearable by the recruiting club. That was in the days when managers were 'merely' the men who trained the team, the players being the expensive commodities.

Such is the modern importance of the manager, however, that he is the pivotal appointment in any club. He is dealing with disparate talents and mentalities from around the world and is trying to bring order to a dressing room full of millionaires who can easily move on if they don't like him.

As such, his wages have grown with his role. Villas-Boas will be more than trebling his previous salary of around £1.5 million to some £5 million at Stamford Bridge. Clubs are seeing the need now to include release clauses and ever increasing fees into managers' contracts. In fact, there is now a market in managers, shown by the fact that most now have agents.

Is the 33-year-old Villas-Boas worth it? The pedigree suggests so, having won the Europa League with Porto, and the comparisons with Jose Mourinho, a predecessor at both Porto and Chelsea, will be inevitable.

Actually, Chelsea appear to be hoping that they are getting Mourinho lite; a similarly promising figure but with more humility and less controversy and brashness to upset the owner Roman Abramovich.

Certainly Villas-Boas seems to know what he is walking into, with his immediate talk of needing to win the Champions League that eluded Mourinho – although the latter may have achieved it had he stayed, since the side he built did reach the final.

If Villas-Boas doesn't? He will join the list who were sacked; not that he can lose. It will be put down to the vicissitudes of managing Chelsea rather than any serious failing on his part and he will probably walk into another job - as a still young man – and with a pay-off amounting to a serious sum of money. This time one that he can keep.---Fanhouse