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This time, they paid the Spanish club £5.2million in compensation.

The figure Chelsea paid for Potter exceeded the £17.2m Bayern Munich paid RB Leipzig for Julian Nagelsmann when he became their head coach in 2021.

All three managers had strong reputations and enticing CVs, and faced big jobs — so why were they so much cheaper to secure than most elite players?

Why do clubs take and lose managers for much smaller fees than those commanded by the 25-or-so footballers they are entrusted with leading and improving?

The Athletic asked the experts what this all says about value for managers and players.

Although a head coach can have far more influence than a single player, it is perhaps over-simplifying things to conflate the two.

Sasha Ryazantsev is Everton’s former chief finance and commercial officer.

“Clubs would love to have a release clause for a manager,” he says, “but any manager, or his agent, worth their salt would demand a reciprocal amount to be payable to him, should he be let go.

“Since it is far more likely that the club would sack the manager than him going himself, clubs prefer to keep any release clause as low as possible.

Clubs can only field players registered to them by European football’s governing body, whereas the manager’s registration rights do not exist.

That means that, unlike managers, players cannot be sacked before the end of their contracts, nor can they walk away from one because they would be unable to play for another club without registration.

It is these registration rights that transfer fees actually pay for.

Then there is the matter of the differences in resale value.

“If a player proves to be a flop, he can often be sold at least at a residual value.

“With the manager, the fee you are paying is likely never to be reimbursed by another club, as again, you are more likely to sack the manager than the manager being poached by another club in the future.”

The traditional structure of buying and selling players, via transfer windows, is another key issue affecting different values.

“With players, the selling club typically has quite a bit of time to put them in the shop window and prepare a deal for the transfer window,” adds Ryazantsev.

Once he wants to leave and has an offer from a buying club, it’s often during the height of the season and the club would rather take any money quickly than have a manager on their hands not focusing fully on the job.”

Ryazantsev also outlines some advantages in manager value versus players for clubs trying to shift highly paid and underperforming stars.

“Player transfer value drops over time and trends to zero — it can even be below zero for those on high wages still in contract and unwanted by current clubs — think of all those loan deals when the old club continues to pay some of the player’s wages.

The head person at Google will usually earn far more than most employees — but managers do have that extra flexibility when bigger clubs come calling.

“There is an understanding generally in football that you should not really stand in the way of opportunity.”

Although resistant to the idea of losing Potter, Brighton eventually accepted his departure — in a sense, this is part of football’s food chain — while holding out for a high compensation figure.

Individual sponsorship deals for players can also add value to clubs, but that level of profile is rare among managers.

“Barcelona lost €70million in one sponsorship deal when Lionel Messi left,” says Dr Matthew Hindmarsh, a senior lecturer in sports business with media at Liverpool John Moores University.

“Top players have their own endorsements with brands and when they are at a club, it can attract more attention and other deals to their clubs.
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