Premier League - Hodgson's '£7.3m Reds pay-off'
It's not often that a West Brom manager outshines Lionel Messi, David Beckham and Jose Mourinho, but Roy Hodgson managed it as his spell at Liverpool made him - albeit briefly - the best-paid man in football.
The Daily Mail reported that the 63-year-old received a staggering £7.3 million pay-off after being fired by Liverpool in January.
That means that the Croydon-born manager earned a total of £8.8m in his 192-day reign at Anfield - adding up to an eye-watering £320,840 a week.
The astronomical sum - equivalent to over £100,000 for each of the 31 matches that Hodgson oversaw - meant that he earned more than any of the superstars in the world game for his ill-fated stint in charge of the Reds.
Real Madrid coach Mourinho earns almost a third less, with £228,000 a week, while even the world's top players couldn't keep up with Roy last year.
Messi is on £210,000 a week, Wayne Rooney on £200,000 and Cristiano Ronaldo on £191,000, while it's a wonder that David Beckham can afford his mortgage payments with his paltry on-field basic of £120,000 every seven days.
Luckily, all five have off-pitch endorsements to top up their survival rations - something unlikely to go Hodgson's way, unless Saga fancy offering him an eight-figure endorsement deal when he turns 65 next year.
In the meantime, Hodgson can content himself on two counts: firstly with the knowledge that, for a spell at least, his has been the fattest wallet in football; and secondly with the sweet memory of having put one over the men who fired him after seeing his new side beat Liverpool at the weekend.
Truly mad, sadly I think there wasn't a great deal he could do. Liverpool were circling the drain when he took over and even now are running on fumes and the Dalglish myth.
