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The Russian Football Union (RFU) has announced that they have terminated head coach Fabio Capello’s contract by mutual consent. The Italian had three years remaining on his contract, but a series of poor results and massive unrest among the fans has seemingly forced the move through.
The statement on RFU’s official website read: “Russian football Union and head coach of the national team of Russia Fabio Capello reached an agreement to terminate the employment contract by mutual agreement. RFU sincerely thank Fabio Capello for his work as head coach and wish him success in his future career.”
“Capello in turn thanked the RFU for their help and support he has felt throughout the years. He is also grateful to the players for working together and the fans for their sincere support to the team,” the RFU press release stated.
The Italian took on the reigns of the Russian national team in July 2012 after leaving his previous post as England manager following John Terry’s dismissal as captain on racism charges. Though he managed to guide his team to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, Russia were knocked out in the group stages having failed to register a single win.
Capello had signed a contract extension only at the beginning of the year which was supposed to keep the Italian at the helm till the end of the 2018 World Cup, which will be hosted by them. However, recent results have been disappointing with Russia managing only two wins in their last ten competitive fixtures. One came against minnows Liechtenstein while the other was by default after the match against Montenegro was marred by crowd trouble.
Russia are currently third in the standings in their qualifying group for the 2016 European Championships and in all probability will need to go through a play-off match to secure their place in the quadrennial event. The nail in the coffin as far as Capello was concerned was the disappointing 1-0 home loss to lowly Austria on June 14.
The financial side of things
The Italian was earning a reported £6.8 million a year as wages, according to the Guardian. He was left unpaid for eight months and it was Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov who handed an emergency loan worth £3.9m to save RFU’s blushes.
Sky Sports reported that RFU’s acting president Nikita Simonyan told last week that all wages owed to Capello until the end of the 2014/15 season had been paid. The contract termination means the 69-year-old will receive around £10m in compensation.
Fans a big influence on the decision
Following the loss against Austria in June, a section of Russian fans found a bizarre way of staging a protest by launching a fundraising campaign titled ‘Fabio go home’ to buy the Italian out of his contract, BBC Sport reported.
The statement on their website read: “Recent public surveys show the vast majority of the country’s football lovers want Capello to step down. But to do that RFU needs to pay 21.4 million Euros for the cancellation of the contract.”
