Mauricio Pochettino is set to leave his role as Paris Saint-Germain coach after the two parties came to an agreement over the terms of his exit.
The Argentine led PSG to the Coupe de France during his first half-season last campaign and followed that up by winning the first league title of his managerial career this season, but it was not enough to make up for the team's European failure – as they exited in the Round of 16 against Real Madrid after tossing away a 2-0 aggregate lead.
The Argentine coach was booed by large sections of the PSG crowd when his name was read out ahead of kick-off at a Ligue 1 clash amid reports that he is set to leave the club. It followed the supporter's major protest at a Ligue 1 clash against Rennes in which they blasted the 'overpaid mercenaries' on their books and attacked the board with Pochettino not escaping their ire.
The delay over Pochettino’s inevitable exit from the Parc des Princes has been focused on the club firstly trying to source his replacement – with Zinedine Zidane and Christophe Galtier thought to be the leading candidates – but also to agree on a compensation package with the boss over the terms of his exit.
The former Tottenham boss has 12 months remaining on his contract with Les Parisiens with Marca outlining how the entirety of that package would cost PSG a total of £12.8million (€15m). While Pochettino will inevitably be disappointed with the sporting aspect of him exiting the French champions, he will still benefit economically.
It follows less than three years on from Pochettino’s exit from Spurs, where he was also entitled to a sizable exit fee when the North London club decided to dismiss him in November 2019. That was with the club 14 th in the Premier League – albeit just six points off the top five – and less than six months after he had led Tottenham to their first-ever Champions League final.
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Pochettino and his backroom staff (including assistant Jesus Perez and coaches Miguel D’Agostino and Antoni Jimenez) were entitled to more than £20million in payoffs from Spurs as the coach had penned a five-year extension to his deal in May 2018, meaning he had three-and-a-half years of that deal remaining at the time of his exit from North London. Of that total sum, he was reported to have been entitled to a payoff of £12.5million from the club.
Pochettino’s exit from PSG is now inevitable and is expected to be confirmed in the coming days as he takes a payoff which is similar to that which he was entitled to from Tottenham in 2019.
