The first step in Real Madrid regime change from Julen Lopetegui to Antonio Conte was completed today as the club officially sacked their manager. They did so with a rather classless statement, which included this very blunt passage:
“The Board of Directors understands that there is a great disproportion between the quality of the staff of Real Madrid, which has 8 players nominated for the next Golden Ball, something unprecedented in the history of the club, and the results obtained to date.”
So much for taking the high road. You would think that a club of Madrid’s stature would have been much more professional about terminating such a high profile contract. The club appointed Santiago Solari manager in the interim.
Don’t cry for Lopetegui too much though as he’ll reportedly walk away with a $20.5m/£16m/€18m severance package.
That was the easy part. Now comes the much more challenging part of the changeover. As was widely reported yesterday, former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte is the strong favorite to be the next boss at the Bernabeu. However, he has a nice parachute himself from when Roman Abramovich sacked him July, and that’s making things complicado.
Antonio Conte is the frontrunner for the job, but his appointment is being held up due to disagreements with former club Chelsea over a compensation package.
In order to sign with Los Blancos, the Italian would have to forego a €10 million (£9m/$11m) severance, leading to the aforementioned complications.
When Conte was let go from Stamford Bridge in the summer, and replaced by ex-Napoli man Maurizio Sarri, it was again a complicated process. What dragged out the process so long? Manager contract release clauses, on both the Chelsea Napoli side.
Real Madrid simply don’t have that much time to work with though. The Spanish Football Federation rules state that they only have two weeks to hire Conte or remove the interim label off Solari. If they fail to do either, they must then move on to another candidate. The coaching carousel is indeed a high-pressured, expensive activity to partake in.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Lineups.com and Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.