Eriksson is 'happy' with his salary for the World Cup

Posted Thursday, April 01, 2010 by The Independent

Sven Goran Eriksson says he has a clear conscience over his salary to coach the Ivory Coast at the World Cup.

The former England manager is reputed to be on a six-figure sum – with extra bonuses – but he says he is "not even close" to the money Fabio Capello earns.

Eriksson speaking on talkSPORT said: "I don't think I am paid that well, but I'm happy. I don't think I'm even close to what the England manager has. But that's ok for me; I have no problems with that. What is most important is to do a good World Cup.

"It's a World Cup and a good team, a lot of good football players and I'm really looking forward to it."

The former England and Manchester City manager's agent Athole Still told the radio station there had been no haggling over his pay.

"The deal that I did for Sven with the Ivory Coast was done extremely amicably," he said. "There was no hard bargaining. The money that he is being paid is money that was offered by the Ivory Coast. I did not get it enhanced in anyway at all. If I had wanted I could have negotiated much more for Sven. We didn't do so."

Still said that Eriksson had lost money at Notts County and insisted that former City owner Thaksin Shinawatra had made "a massive mistake" in sacking the Swede.

"If Sven was still at Manchester City I believe that Manchester City would be doing even better than they are doing now," said Still.

"As far as I'm concerned Manchester City made a massive mistake in sacking him. It wasn't Manchester City, it was a person called Dr Shinawatra.

"I hope very much he is back in the Premier League and if he comes back he will do an extremely good job like he did at Manchester City until he was outrageously sacked."

Meanwhile Manchester City's Ivory Coast defender Kolo Toure has welcomed Eriksson's appointment.

Toure told mcfc.co.uk: "I'm very excited about it. I've spoken to a few people at the club who remember him from his time here and I've heard lots of good things about him.

"It's a big challenge for him. The team needs a bit of confidence, but we have some very good players and we just need to get a bit of belief back.

"We needed somebody with experience with the World Cup coming up, and now we really have one, someone who has done so much in football down the years.

"He is one of the world's top managers, and with us not having much time to the World Cup we need to work with him when we can quickly and intelligently," added the former Arsenal defender.