By Paul Nicholson
September 17 – While talk in Russian football has been about quotas on foreign players and the need to raise the quality and number of Russian coaches, top clubs still appear to be looking outside Russian borders for top management.
FC Lokomotiv Moscow are reportedly close to signing Italian Roberto Mancini, if they are prepared to meet his demands for a €6 million salary and a substantial (no figure has been named) transfer budget. Negotiations are on-going.
If Mancini doesn’t sign then Lokomotiv are rumoured to be targeting another Italian, Luciano Spalletti, who is currently with Zenit St Petersburg. Failing that Rostiv’s Montenegrin manager Miodrag Bozovic is favourite. Lokomotiv’s current manager, Belarusian Leonid Kuchuk, is remaining in charge of the team until his successor is appointed.
A key debate within Russian football has been over the use by clubs of foreign coaches, with the criticism being that they do not help the national game develop. Something that Lokomotiv appears to be taking no notice of.
But foreign coaches come at a cost. The Football Union of Russia (FUR) already taxes clubs that employ foreign coaches, and that tax looks set to be increased following recommendations from a ‘commission of coaching excellence’.
Clubs who have foreign head coaches currently pay a 2.5 million rubles ($72.800) levy to the FUR if they are in the First Division and 5 million rubles ($145,800) if they are in the Russian Premier League.
The commission is also looking at expanding the tax to include foreign assistant coaches. The FUR believes that clubs should be training Russians to fill these coaching positions rather than just seeking fast results by dipping into the pool of foreign coaches available.
Russian national team manager, Italian Fabio Capello, who renewed his contract after the Brazilian World Cup to take the team through to 2018, has committed to working with more Russian coaches in his set-up.
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