Pearce to sign City deal despite lack of safety net

It could be the start of an ethical revolution or it could be a glorious one-off, but yesterday the Manchester City manager Stuart Pearce confirmed that he will formally sign his rolling contract at some point during the next week. And with no compensation fee inserted into the deal, the former England full-back will receive no pay-off if he is sacked, while City will not receive any financial recompense if and when he leaves to take another job.

With his radical move - a gesture of extraordinary generosity in football's era of the bottom line - Pearce has risked the wrath of his wife, Liz. "It has been mentioned at home," he said yesterday of his deal. "My wife thinks I am an idiot."

A fortnight after confirming that he was working without a contract, Pearce will finally get round to signing the £900,000-a-year deal which was put before him by the Blues chairman John Wardle during the summer.

On Pearce's insistence the contract is "worthless" anyway because it ensures he could leave Eastlands at any point without City being able to claim compensation and will leave him without a penny in the unlikely event of the club dispensing with his services.

"Why should Manchester City pay me for not being their manager?" he said. "I have been fortunate to earn a decent wage as a player, and now as a manager. I don't want their money and I don't want to be wrangling with the chief executive for a couple of quid.

"You look around the country and see various ex-managers involved in legal battles with their old clubs months after they have been sacked. I do not want to be in that situation. If City no longer want me as manager, I would just thank them for giving me the honour of doing the job, accept I have not been good enough and go home to see the wife and kids and do a bit of mucking out in the stables."

Pearce went even further, saying: "If the chairman offered me more money I would say 'no'. I have not earned what I am getting yet. He has always been very fair with me and I am on a very fair contract, so I see no reason why I should be knocking on his door. We have won nothing. I do not believe I warrant any form of pay rise."