
Andre Villas-Boas’s current woes as Chelsea manager got Football Burp wondering: what else can thirteen million of Her Majesty’s pounds – the amount it took Roman Abramovich to pay off the Portuguese’s contract at Porto – get you these days?
As such, we bring you twenty recent examples of Things That Cost the Same as Andre Villas-Boas…
- A three-mile dual carriageway in Newport.
- A new national supercomputer, known as Archer, that will support advanced research such as climate science and complex chemistry.
- Improved facilities for flavour production in the UK.
- A new six-storey health centre in the heart of Birmingham’s growing Attwood Green community that will provide over 4,500 sq m of space for a wider range of health services.
- A new multi-storey car park in Douglas.
- A new purpose-built Extra Care housing development for older people at Silverdene, Tildesley Close, Penkridge.
- A fire service building in Castle Donington.
- A sports and swimming complex, including a 25m pool, in Neath Port Talbot.
- The transformation of a Rochdale high school that will allow it to accommodate up to 1,200 students.
- A compensation bill for the alleged mismanagement of high risk Contract for Difference (CfD) investments.
- A “cash bonanza” promised by the local authority to three Towy Valley primary schools.
- A zero-carbon school in Islington.
- A £13 million two-year phased programme of works at Royal Bolton Hospital on behalf of Bolton NHS Foundation Trust.
- A regeneration of Kirkby town centre.
- A five-year contract to handle storage for household cleaning products manufacturer Jeyes.
- Ten years’ worth of consultant and architect fees for schools which weren’t even built.
- The value of metal stolen from British railways over the last three years.
- A government kick-start fund for the county of Lancashire.
- Upgrades to Scottish Water’s infrastructure in time for the Commonwealth Games.
- The total cuts that need to be made by the Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust, which runs the Rochdale Infirmary, to their budget for this year.

Do you know of anything else that cost the same as Andre Villas-Boas? Have your say in the comments section below…