Driving Naari Programme launched in Chandigarh
Moscow: Russia`s Football Union (RFU) boss Nikolai Tolstykh faces the sack over a six-month failure to pay the wages of national team manager Fabio Capello, local media reported Monday.
A deadline — issued in December by Russia`s labour agency — to pay off Capello`s back wages expired on Monday.
“We haven`t got any information from the RFU concerning our order to discharge Capello`s contract indebtedness,” the R-Sport news agency quoted Russia`s labour agency top official Yegor Ivanov as saying on Monday.
“The agency is now set to hold an unscheduled inspection in the RFU.”
The 68-year-old Italian manager has signed a new lucrative contract with RFU last year which covers the 2018 World Cup hosted by russia. Capello reportedly is the world`s highest paid coach with a salary of around 7 million euros.
However, he had not been paid for seven months and the RFU debt has reached the sum of 600 million roubles ($9.2 million, 7.9 million euros) including the taxes.
The Italian coach who took charge of Russia`s squad in 2012 reportedly expressed a desire to rip up his contract with RFU.
“I haven`t been paid according to my contract for months,” Sportbox.ru site quoted Capello as saying.
“I am getting close to the limit. I am somewhere near.”
In this case the RFU penalty may reach the sum of 25 million euros, which is specified in Capello`s contract.
Russia`s football boss Tolstykh, who has already been fined for Capello`s payment arrears, may now be discharged from his post and banned from the sport for up to three years, local media reported.
“We`re making every effort to clear off Capello`s wage overdue,” Tolstykh told the press last week.
“We`re set to use any official source of funding to comply Capello`s contract.”
The RFU debacle is particularly embarrassing as russia is already preparing to host the 2018 World Cup with a forecasted cost of $14.4 billion (12.4 billion euros), half of which is supposed to come from private investment and half from the state budget.
Monday`s deadline to pay off former England coach Capello coincided with a visit to Moscow by the head of European football`s governing body UEFA`s Michel Platini.
But UEFA said that Platini meeting with Tolstykh was not connected with Capello`s wage dispute, Russia`s state-owned news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Reuters
