With the amount of money floating around the Premier League at the moment, relegation can be very costly.
Top-flight teams’ desperation to stay afloat has been reflected by managerial changes, with Swansea City and Crystal Palace bringing new men into the dugout before the halfway point in the season.
Last season, nine full-time managers left their posts with Premier League clubs, including two Aston Villa bosses, with Dick Advocaat, Brendan Rodgers and Tim Sherwood all gone before the turn of the year.
When a club is struggling it can be tough to encourage the highest calibre of coach to join, which is why we often see new appointments handed the carrot of a hefty bonus just for staying in the division.
That is certainly the case for Sam Allardyce, who joined Crystal Palace this week after Alan Pardew was asked to leave with the London club flirting with the bottom three.
#CPFC are pleased to announce Sam Allardyce as the new First Team Manager on a two-and-a-half year contract – https://t.co/fKHsWCuAey 🔴🔵 pic.twitter.com/nkA3V7z3qX
— Crystal Palace F.C. (@CPFC) December 23, 2016
Allardyce, who has never been relegated from English football’s top division, is on wages of £2.5m per year with the London club, according to the Daily Mail.
But the paper reports that the former England boss will get an extra £2m if he can secure Palace’s top-flight status for a fifth straight season.
The figure is thought to be comparable to the sum taken home by Tony Pulis for keeping the club up in the 2013/14 season, though Pulis was forced to pay more than that amount after he was ruled to have ‘deceived’ an arbitration tribunal in relation to his Selhurst Park exit.
The £2m sum is also believed to be comparable to the amount Allardyce received last season for keeping Sunderland afloat in the Premier League after replacing Dick Advocaat.
