That last sentence whilst extreme isn’t far from normal business practice.
A lot professionals in any industry have bonuses, they are even referred to as OTB - on target bonus. You meet your targets and get your standard bonus, do better and get more do slightly worse than expectations and often still get a bonus amount.
If survival was the aim for Bolton last season you would expect there would be bonuses as such, bigger bonuses would have kicked in if stretch targets were met.
It seems daft in the mega money world of football granted but it’s not unusual.