25 million reasons equating 25 million euros. That’s why off-field the Real Madrid top brass still have to play nice and keep their hands off head coach Zinedine Zidane despite the Los Blancos train being derailed and running off-track in both the Champions League and the domestic La Liga.
Madrid have now conceded five losses in all competitions this season with alarming defeats coming against both unexpected and low-tier clubs like Alaves, Cadiz and Shakhtar Donetsk. Zidane had also witnessed his side thrashed 4-1 by Valencia ahead of the international break in November.
A turbulent start to the season has seen gags taken off mouths and the loud rumblings are ongoing that the Frenchman is under tremendous pressure and may well be shown the exit by the end of this year or even within the next few imminent matches that will determine his fate at Los Blancos. The club is rumored to be already pondering over how and with which manager they will replace the 48-year-old.
However, despite facing a race against time, the club isn’t sacking Zizou due to the one major reason that Zidane’s contract at the Santiago Bernabeu lasts until June 2022 and sees the coach cashing in on 16 million euros annually. In the event that Madrid decide to dispense with the services of the club’s 3-time Champions League winner, they will be forced to painfully fork out close to 25 million euros as his severance package.
In the midst of a pandemic that ‘s still rearing its sinister head, Florentino Perez and the Real Madrid hierarchy are only too well aware of how suffocating a figure of 25 million euros is, any which way you choose to look at it. In view of such a bleak scenario, the club has agreed on a second round of pay-cuts with its staff in the hope that at the end of such a cycle, the money they effectively scrimped up may then be spent on the first-team manager’s severance dues.
The other consideration is that Zidane has also been used by Real Madrid to bait some major signings over the last few years, among who are Raphael Varane and Eden Hazard. On top of that, an undercurrent move forPSG’s Kylian Mbappe and a few others targeted by the club may also be dependent on Zidane’s continuity on the Bernabeu’s hotseat.