WHEN Alf Ramsey led England to victory in the 1966 World Cup, he was paid £3,000 a year. When he was dismissed eight years later, he received a payoff of £8,000. After his death in 1999, his widow faced selling the family home and Sir Alf’s memorabilia.
No such strictures have been endured by Sven-Göran Eriksson, who has transformed himself into a money-making enterprise by good sense, good advice and good luck. If England’s players in this year’s World Cup finals in Germany are vastly better-paid than their predecessors 40 years ago, the gap in the earning capacity of the two coaches is even more pronounced.
When Eriksson was hired by the FA in 2001, he was paid £2 million a year, after tax. By Euro 2004, after reports that Eriksson had been flirting with leading clubs such as Chelsea and Manchester United, the value of his new contract until 2008 had risen to £4.5 million a year gross, making him easily the highest-paid manager in the tournament.
Otto Rehhagel, the German coach of Greece, surprise winners of Euro 2004, was earning £495,000 a year, while Luiz Filipe Scolari, who led Portugal to the final, was earning £1.125 million. And Scolari had coached Brazil to victory in the 2002 World Cup.
However, Eriksson’s salary is only one part of his earnings. In March 2002, he joined IMG, founded by the late Mark McCormack, which has represented many of the world’s most celebrated sportsmen and women, including Tiger Woods. While his longstanding confidant, Athole Still, continued to represent him in such areas as salary negotiations with the FA, IMG began to promote Eriksson outside football.
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One of his first jobs was for a Sainsbury’s television advertisement with Jamie Oliver, for which Eriksson was paid a reported £200,000. He also advertised an Italian sauce, Cirio, which is believed to have brought in a further £200,000.
He also promoted two PlayStation games, called Sven- Göran Eriksson’s World Cup Manager and Sven-Göran Eriksson’s World Cup Challenge, which could eventually earn him millions. A book, Sven- Göran Eriksson on Football, earned hundreds of thousands of pounds. Then there was the triple CD set of his favourite 44 pieces of classical music.
Although personal appearances and after-dinner speaking engagements are limited by the demands of his job, he can earn £50,000 per evening when available. If England are winning, his market value can rise sharply.
He has already come a long way from his humble upbringing in Torsby, a small town in Sweden, where his mother worked as a nurse and his father as a lorry driver. However, despite having to settle an expensive divorce from his wife, Ann-Kristin, 14 years ago, he has also been able to invest in property, usually situated where his job has taken him.
Eriksson owns a £550,000 villa in Portugal, acquired during his spell with Benfica, with whom he won three national titles, and has bought a large house in Fregene, near Rome, which is worth £350,000, as well as a property in Sweden worth £225,000.
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In London, he bought a four-storey house for £2.5 million in 2001 but it is certainly worth far more now. He has lived there for much of the past five years with his long-time girlfriend, Nancy Dell’Olio. The property is part of a terrace, designed by John Nash, the celebrated architect, and situated close to Regent’s Park.
However, all this wealth will be dwarfed should England reach the final of the World Cup, let alone win the competition this summer. Eriksson has always been reticent about his earning capacity. “I do make a lot of money from my job,” he said. “But I am no different as a person from what I was 30 years ago.”