Among the official coaches leading Man United after the Sir Alex Ferguson era, David Moyes is the shortest in office (about 7 months). Ruben Amorim has a 14-month tenure, which is also very fleeting despite being highly expected.
The total amount of money Man United must compensate Amorim and his coaching staff is about 10 million pounds. The two sides signed up to June 2027 but broke off much earlier than expected. When bringing the 40-year-old coach to Old Trafford from Sporting Lisbon, Man United also had to spend 11 million pounds to break the contract with the Portuguese team.
For nearly 27 years, from the late 1980s, Man United did not need to worry about the cost of changing coaches. Sir Alex Ferguson's long and extremely successful time ensured that all problems were often outside the coaching area at Old Trafford. Many things have changed since Fergie retired in 2013. Amorim is the 6th person to lead the team for the next 12 and a half years.
All those fluctuations have their price. Alex Ferguson's breakup cost the club about 2.4 million pounds to terminate contracts with members of the coaching staff who were not trusted by David Moyes. Only 10 months after the 6-year contract, Moyes was fired in April 2014. The removal of Moyes and his assistants cost Man United 4.9 million pounds. That was the "Red Devils"' least costly strike ever.
Louis van Gaal stayed for 2 years after Moyes left office, with the cost of sacking the Dutch coach and assistants being £8.4 million. Next is Jose Mourinho, who was sacked in December 2018 and received £19.6 million (the largest compensation for the coach in Man United's history). Ole Gunnar Solskjaer (£9.1 million) and Erik ten Hag (£10.4 million) also received not small amounts. Ten Hag's case is also special in that he was sacked less than 4 months after Man United activated the contract extension clause for another year.
The most difficult case to handle is Ralf Rangnick, who was appointed interim coach when Solskjaer left, with a 2-year advisory role after the 2021-2022 season ended. He never took on this position, but his departure in May 2022 coincided with Man United having to pay an additional £14.4 million in compensation.
According to information provided by the club at that time, the amount of £14.4 million was not only paid specifically to Rangnick and his team. Instead, part of it was used for wider personnel changes in both football and non-football departments at Old Trafford. Therefore, the exact amount paid to the German coach and his team when they left has not been disclosed.
Even without considering that amount of money, the cost Man United had to spend to fire coaches in recent years is estimated at about £64.9 million. The exact figure will be clarified when the club announces the next financial information in the next few months. However, for a club of the size of Man United, it is not a large amount of money, it is less than 1% of revenue since Sir Alex Ferguson retired more than 12 years ago.
In the years Man United sacked Moyes, Van Gaal and Mourinho, the team still recorded positive revenue. However, things have changed in recent years. In total, the cost to sack Ashworth, Ten Hag and his assistants is equivalent to 2/5 of the personnel change cost at Carrington last season.
Manchester United cut £51.5 million from the salary fund in the 2024-2025 season (the reduction is 14%). This is the result from the layoff of 176 employees (about 22%). However, the layoff of employees related to football accounted for 28% of the salary fund savings of the previous season and took place at a time when the club was still bearing the costs of scale reduction. In the first quarter of the 2025-2026 season, salaries continued to decrease by £6.6 million (8%) compared to the same period last year. Amorim's layoff cost took up all that savings and even more.
The downside of the costs incurred due to the sacking of coaches is the impact of the team continuing to play ineffectively. Man United's 15th position last season brought in 136.2 million pounds in bonuses from the Premier League, their lowest domestic income since 2016 (excluding the 2019-2020 season affected by the pandemic).
Not participating in the European Cup this season is a major factor, contributing to Man United being predicted to have slightly reduced revenue in the 2025-2026 season, while the revenue of rivals is increasing sharply.
