Tottenham pays Ramos $2.7M buyout

Tottenham Hotspur has agreed to pay out $2.7 million pounds to Juande Ramos to ease the pain of his being sacked just a few weeks ago.

The Spaniard could have walked away with a lot more, but it is understood that his severance payment was linked to where Tottenham found itself in the league table at the time of his departure. Spurs were, of course, bottom of the league, and so Ramos only collects just under half of his $5.5 million-a-year salary.

He had threatened to sue the club for far more, his agent insisting last week that he was entitled to 75 percent of the remaining value of his contract that still had 2½ years to run.

He has settled for less though, as a means of resolving the situation speedily.

Ramos' assistants, Marcos Alvarez and Gus Poyet, have also agreed to accept half of their annual salaries, meaning that it will have cost Spurs just over $4 million to rid themselves of their second management team in a year.

The club also had to pay Portsmouth $8 million in compensation to secure the services of Harry Redknapp, meaning that it had to fork out a cool $11.9 million to change their manager. At least Harry Redknapp is on a lower salary.

That money also looks like small change when compared with the cost of relegation from the Premier League.

Ramos himself is planning a quick return to management, with Shakhtar Donetsk of the Ukraine opening preliminary talks with his agent, Ginés Carvajal, last week. Ramos is believed to be holding out for a return to Spain, though, probably to Atletico Madrid.