Aston Villa paid seven-figure compensation for Steven Gerrard from Rangers
Aston Villa had to pay a whopping compensation fee to Rangers to bring Steven Gerrard to the Midlands from Glasgow.
Rangers’ official accounts report was released to the public on Wednesday (9 November) and within the documents saw an incoming compensation fee of £4.25million from the Villans.
There were extra expenditures to bring some of Gerrard’s backroom staff to Bodymoor with him which increased the outlay even further.
But things did not work out for Gerrard at Aston Villa and it turned out that each victory he earned in the dugout would be worth £360,000 of the initial £4.25million paid.
“Compensation income relates to amounts received following the departure of the previous football management team,” is how Rangers determined compensation fees in their official documents.
Poor decision
With hindsight, it is easy to see that bringing Gerrard into the cauldron of the Premier League was an error and to spend so much to do so is even worse.
He had only ever had one managerial role before Villa took the leap of faith to hire him and given the direction and experience needed to guide the club onto the right path, it was perhaps too soon to bring in someone so inexperienced.
Unai Emery is the completely opposite manager to Gerrard and is far more sensible when it comes to paying money to other clubs in order to knab their bosses.
Aston Villa might not be where the Spaniard saw himself being having done so well with Villareal in La Liga but it may actually be the club where he finally cracks the Premier League.
Beating Manchester United in his first game is the perfect start to proceedings and if the team perform like they did at Villa Park on that day every time then things will be all fine and dandy now.
In other Aston Villa news, Leon Bailey took to Twitter to blast the officials during the United win after what happened to him.