SOCCER:LIVERPOOL HAVE given the clearest indication yet Rafael Benitez's six-year spell in charge is drawing to a close by offering their manager €3.6 million to leave Anfield. There were even reports late last night his contract had already been terminated. It is believed the Spaniard, entitled to €19 million if sacked this summer, has been offered the lesser sum to quit with immediate effect.
Benitez’s position has been in serious doubt since January when Juventus targeted the 50-year-old to replace Ciro Ferrara. The Liverpool manager allowed that opportunity to pass in the hope of staying at Anfield, providing he obtained assurances over the club’s transfer budget and search for investment. However, with the club unable or unwilling to provide Benitez with those guarantees, the Liverpool board has presented Benitez with a shock exit route.
The former Valencia coach has held talks with the Liverpool chairman, Martin Broughton, in recent weeks, where he outlined his strategy for restoring the club’s fortunes following a dispiriting campaign.
He is understood to have stressed Liverpool cannot recover without an end to Tom Hicks’s and George Gillett’s calamitous ownership or without a commitment to reinvest in the squad should Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard decide to leave this summer.
Liverpool’s best two players have both said they will consider their futures after the World Cup and the Spanish newspaper Marca yesterday announced that Gerrard is the target of Real Madrid’s new manager, Jose Mourinho.
With no takeover imminent, and Hicks revealing last week it could take until next year to find an investor willing to meet his €720 million to €960 million price for Liverpool, Anfield officials have reacted to Benitez’s demands with a counter-offer that suggests they accept the impasse cannot continue and renders his position untenable. The Liverpool manager was unavailable for comment last night.
Under the terms of the contract signed last year, Benitez is entitled to a full payout if the deal is terminated by the club. With four years remaining on the deal, Liverpool would have to find €19 million to sack the man who has won a European Cup and FA Cup since his arrival in 2004. Their offer of less than a quarter of that sum is an indication of the financial constraints at a club that, for the year to July 30th, 2009, was €420 million in debt.
Liverpool’s compromise package could be a means to encourage a takeover by removing a manager that a potential new investor does not want for a reduced fee. However, with Hicks and Gillett holding out for a substantial profit on a club that has yet to begin work on a proposed stadium on Stanley Park, and no offer for a total sale on the table, it is more likely a sign that Benitez’s conditions cannot be met.
The manager has had to sell players before he could buy during recent transfer windows and, in the absence of a new investor or monies from the possible sales of Gerrard and Torres, will be in a similar position this summer.
Should Benitez accept the pay-off or is sacked he is unlikely to struggle to find employment despite Juventus appointing Luigi Del Neri as coach and Real Madrid replacing Manuel Pellegrini with Mourinho.
The president of the reigning European champions Internazionale, Massimo Moratti, is a confirmed admirer of the Spaniard and has seen his hopes of enticing the England manager, Fabio Capello, back to Italy after the World Cup dashed.
Where Benitez’s departure would leave Liverpool is open to conjecture. Two potential candidates, Roy Hodgson and Martin O’Neill, have reiterated their commitment to Fulham and Aston Villa respectively and, as Liverpool’s offer to Benitez suggests, substantial funds are unlikely to be available at Anfield this summer.
