Chelsea confident of Conte agreeing to new contract and 70 per cent raise

Antonio Conte’s contract extension should be priority number one at Chelsea as soon as the season officially ends with the FA Cup final on May 27th.

The general narrative for the past couple months has been that he will sign a new three-year contract in the summer, alongside a solid raise and backing in the transfer market. But with the continuing rumors of Inter Milan (who sacked their manager just last night) and now even Barcelona remaining in the picture, that raise has been steadily growing.

In March, the rumored new contract was supposed to include an annual salary of £8m, representing a 25 per cent raise from Conte’s current annual wages of around £6.5m. Now, according to a few sources, that raise will be closer to £10m, which perhaps not coincidentally is what Inter Milan are supposedly willing to pay him. That’s a rather hefty raise of about 70 per cent. I think we can all agree that it’s well deserved, whatever the final amount ends up being. (While there are rumors that the new contract will be a five-year deal, Chelsea’s standard these days seems to be three years for head coaches.)

Further reports in the Telegraph and elsewhere also claim that Conte will have free reign to choose a new assistant with Steve Holland leaving for his England job next month. Previously, Holland’s spot wasn’t going to be filled by anyone.

Either way, hopefully all this will be signed, sealed, and delivered, and we can stop having to deal with Inter’s nonsense and get down to the business of overhauling the squad and getting it ready for Europe and next season.