Pulling the Plug

Daum's decision to exercise an opt-out clause in his contract in order to join Turkish club Fenerbahce caught both bosses and fans in Cologne completely unawares.

The coach had been on a salary of 2.4 million euros at Cologne. In the wake of his precipitous exit, Daum - who will reportedly earn 3.5 million a year in Istanbul -- was accused of selling out for personal gain a club he repeatedly insisted was "dear to his heart."

Yet a closer look at the statement Daum made when he announced his decision on Tuesday suggests that more than individual greed was at stake.

"Last Saturday I received an offer from a top European club that was convincing in both a sporting as well as a financial sense," Daum said. "My decision was not made against Cologne but rather for a new challenge."

Football press conferences are notorious for being long on hot air and short on truth. But in emphasizing the word "sporting," Daum underscored another advantage he will enjoy in Turkey, an estimated 40 million euros to spend on new players.

That's far beyond the means of Cologne, who finished 12th in league and have already busted their budget to bring back local boy Lukas Podolski from Bayern.

So Daum likely figured that he was far more likely to be a success at Fenerbahce, with whom he won two Turkish league titles in 2004 and 2005, than with perennially parsimonious, mediocre Cologne.

Take this job and shove it

Normally, when coaches resign, it's a face-saving measure designed to cover up the fact that they have been told to leave. But Daum isn't the only coach to have decided that his club's ambitions are considerably lower than his own.

A week before Daum's departure, Hamburg's coach Martin Jol suddenly threw in the towel and headed to Dutch side Ajax Amsterdam. The move came after Jol reportedly demanded that the northern Germans re-invest some 40 millions euros the club had earned from the sales of Raffael van der Vaart, Nigel de Jong and Vincent Kompany this season.

In interviews, after the conclusion of the 2008-09 season, in which Hamburg scraped into fifth place thanks to a single extra-time (and probably offside) goal, the Dutch coach repeatedly stressed that Hamburg had achieved "the maximum" it could, given its personnel.

But Hamburg bosses Bernd Hoffmann and Dietmar Beiersdorfer are famous around the league for their buy-cheap-sell-expensive approach, in which balancing the budget has priority over results in any one year. So Jol bolted.

The irony is that Hamburg, whose net worth was recently estimated by Forbes magazine at 170 million euros, is far richer than Ajax.

But in Amsterdam, Jol will be technical director as well as coach, meaning he'll have more say over how the money and how much of it is spent. He probably concluded he's have a better chance of leading Ajax back to the top of the Dutch Eredivisie than winning a Bundesliga title with Hamburg.

Who's next?

Because of decreasing revenues due to the financial crisis, most Bundesliga clubs are under pressure to cut costs. That is creating a conflict of interest between management and coaches, whose professional worth is based on their past results and who thus may decide it's better to leave a club voluntarily than risk disappointing expectations with an inferior, under-financed squad.

Just how important is money to sporting success? Cash alone doesn't win titles, but it's hardly accidental that Wolfsburg, who invested heavily in a past two years, were this season's surprise league winners.

Despite that triumph, their coach Felix Magath decided to jump ship to Schalke - the second wealthiest club in Germany.

Hertha Berlin's coach Lucien Favre put the situation bluntly when he took up his job in 2007. "Transfers decide 80 percent of the season," Favre said back then, and he has repeated that assertion on numerous occasions since.

Favre led Hertha to a better-than-expected fourth-place finish this season, but with the club planning to reduce its player salary budget from 33 to 28 million, the Swiss coach is already warning that he'll be hard pressed to replicate that result next season.

Coincidentally or not, Favre's has been one name linked with the coaching vacancy at Hamburg.

If he follows the trend of following the money, he'll pull up stakes in the capital and try to get the job.

Author: Jefferson Chase

Editor: Chuck Penfold