Ipswich Town manager Mick McCarthy has revealed he has got a substantial buy-out clause in his contract.

The Blues face Fulham at Craven Cottage tonight (7.45pm ko), the west London club – who have now been without a permanent manager for more than a month – rumoured to have been very interested in McCarthy back in the summer before they gave Kit Symons the job.

Asked if anyone from Fulham, who tried and failed to lure Steve Clarke from Reading recently, had spoken to him during the off-season, McCarthy replied: “Well, if they had, I wouldn’t tell you, but genuinely no.

“They all know my situation. If anyone rings me up I tell them ‘ring (owner) Marcus (Evans) because there’s a clause in my contract that you can buy me out’. It’s pretty restrictive enough to make sure that nobody is going to bother to ask.

“That’s fine because it stops people ringing me up.”

McCarthy, along with assistant Terry Connor, signed a new three-year deal at Portman Road in the summer of 2014. And the experienced Yorkshireman, who has overseen Championship finishes of 14th, ninth and sixth, said recently that this is the happiest he has felt in his 23-year managerial career.

With Town sixth in the table, eight points ahead of 17th-placed Fulham, McCarthy continued: “If somebody was deadly serious and thought that I was worthy of doing something else then they know the rules don’t they? If that was to happen (the buy-out clause was triggered) then there’d be a decision to make, but that’s never been the case.

“I asked for the clause right at the very start when I spoke to Marcus.

“Don’t forget that I’d only just left the Premier League at the time, so I said that if a Premier League club wanted to take me on, there should be a clause in the contract.”

After clarifying that the clause was generic, and not just for top-flight clubs, he added: “I’m happy with it and I don’t mind people knowing about that. I’m sure people do know because I’ve been asked about it in the past.

“I’m delighted to be here. I would not do it (speak to other clubs). If people were speaking to Marcus about him giving my job to someone else then I would be pretty annoyed. I wouldn’t be so disrespectful to do it to him and know full well that he wouldn’t be so disrespectful to do it to me.”

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