The Fabio Capello business lesson

 This man is not Fabio Capello

OK, no doubt when Peter Crouch directs a winning header into the top left-hand corner of the net in the 89th minute of the World Cup Final on July 11th, all doubts about Fabio Capello's managerial ability will disappear like hot pies at half time in a League One match on a wet February evening.

Until then, I think we're allowed to raise one or two questions about the size of the salary that is paid to this son of San Canzian d'Isonzo.

Here are the facts:

• Capello's estimated salary is £6m per year
• In the two and a half years in which Capello has been employed by the Football Association, he has been paid in salary, before bonuses, approximately £17.5m
• Until the start of the World Cup, Capello's salary worked out at £1.75m for every competitive match, or £19,178 per day
• Capello earns four times as much as Marcello Lippi (manager of current World Cup Champions Italy)
• When Alf Ramsey led England to World Cup Glory in 1966, his salary was £7,200. At that time an average teacher earned £2,300 per year
• Capello thus earns more in six days that Ramsey did in his entire 11 years as England Manager
• Alf Ramsey's bonus for World Cup success was a knighthood and £5,000.
• When Ramsey stepped down as England manager, he received a payoff of £8,000. When Kevin Keegan won his Constructive Dismissal claim against Newcastle United in 2009, he was awarded £2m (plus interest!)
• If Capello manages to motivate, manage, cajole or threaten the (by Saturday's standards) lacklustre England team to win the title, it's reported he will receive a bonus of £2m 

Having said all that, Wayne Rooney and a select number of other Premier League players in the England squad are also said to earn in the region of £5 million per year. Clearly that's significantly more than (I assume!) most readers of HR Case Studies! Many investment banking executives still earn much more than £1m each. Even in the hard times faced by those working in the financial sector, in 2009 the capped pay and bonuses of senior managers in Goldman Sachs still  amounted to a package in the region of £1m each.

Goldman Sachs, Wayne Rooney and The Talent Myth

• So this brings us back to the old conundrum: whether a goalscoring superstar, a financial wizard or a World Cup Winning managerial genius, are these guys worth the salaries they're paid, and do you reckon you could do their job?