A bumper new £8m pay offer from City... Sven's done it again!
Manchester City have offered Sven Goran Eriksson an £8million deal to become their new manager. Sportsmail can reveal that the club's new majority shareholder Thaksin Shinawatra made the offer at a meeting in London on Tuesday.If Eriksson accepts the challenge of leading the former Thai prime minister's assault on the Premiership, he will be guaranteed £2m a year for three years — with the possibility of an additional £2m in bonuses.
The deal would comfortably make Eriksson City's highest paid manager and equates to more than three times what his predecessor Stuart Pearce was earning at the club. It will also not escape the notice of the FA that the figures roughly equal the £6,500-a-day the Swede has recently been paid as part of his severance deal after leaving the England job last summer.
Coincidentally, that arrangement is due to finish at the end of this month and it remains to be seen if Eriksson accepts City's offer of a return to English football. Currently in Sweden mulling over the deal, Eriksson is expected to give City an answer within 24 hours now that Thaksin's takeover of the club is finally under way.
Thaksin said yesterday: "I know about his performance in the past. He is one of the top coaches in Europe. I've heard the criticism of him but nobody is perfect. He'll prove himself with us and as long as he can do the job, would like the job and is fit for it — and my advisers say 'OK, this is the man' — then I would support him."
He said: "If we come across many magical players and need them, we have to invest. When you invest millions of pounds in a club, then you have to buy an engine. If necessary £50m, or it could be £20m, £30m. It depends. We need to add two more strikers, two more midfielders and maybe a few more. It depends on who we can get."
Revealing that his plans include setting up academies in Asia and the Middle East, he added: "I'm quite confident that I can make Manchester City as popular as Liverpool and Manchester United in the next two or three years. It's a big ambition. I can dream. But we need to build the club step by step. First we have to make the sleeping giant wake up."
