Raymond Domenech's World Cup pay off

In spite of his denials, Raymond Domenech, rakes in a tidy sum for getting Les Bleus to the World Cup finals

It should be interesting to see how the manager of the French national football team, Raymond Domenech, reacts to the news of how much he has earned for helping the side reach the finals of the World Cup in South Africa next year.

After the French controversially qualified last month thanks to that now infamous "hand of Henry" in their match against the Republic of Ireland, speculation in the French media was widespread over just how much Domenech and his players had made.



More than €820,000 in total for Domenech alone, was the figure bandied about, and one which the 57-year-old was quick to dismiss.

"If I had earned that much I would be extremely happy," said an astonished Domenech when questioned about the amount on national radio.

"But it's far from being the case and I'm not even going to try to contradict something that appears to follow the usual editorial line," he continued, referring to the constant criticism over his management style that he has received from many quarters of the media during his five years in charge.

"It's a complete lie."

Except it wasn't if figures the national daily, Le Monde, has managed to get hold of from the French Football Federation (FFF, a pretty good source) are to believed.

They reveal that in fact Domenech earned €826,222.

Now of course we're all used to hearing about the elevated salaries of the world's top players.

And there's unquestionably room for debate over whether they're merited, the true "value" of those at the top of the beautiful game and the morality behind splashing out such vast sums.

Similarly it has to be admitted that Domenech's earnings pale somewhat in comparison with some of his international counterparts such as the England manager, Fabio Capello, whose annual salary is £6.5 million (€7.2 million).

But the confirmation coming just a couple of weeks after that denial from the French manager doesn't exactly put him in a good light, which is perhaps the reason Jean-Louis Valentin, the deputy director of the FFF has so readily leapt to his defence.

"He didn't lie," insisted Valentin, explaining that the total was broken down into several elements over a number of years.

"When you look at the salaries earned by politicians or film stars, you would never think about calculating them on a period covering two or three years," he continued.

"And Raymond Domenech could never have imagined (when asked the question) that the media would do exactly that in working out his salary."

So that's all cleared up then, and we can be rest assured that Domenech didn't in fact fall into the same trap of telling a lie - the very accusation he made of those French media reports.

Instead we can now happily hope that he breaks his habit of managing to produce less than the best from a squad of some of the world's most talented players and concentrate on him might actually win something in South Africa.

That would be a first in his managerial career.