The Russian Football Union (FUR) has admitted that it cannot afford to pay coach Fabio Capello his £7m salary.
The veteran Italian coach has not been paid since June and said earlier this month he was “getting close to the limit” of his patience.
Given dismal Russia’s performance at the 2014 World Cup as well as their underwhelming Euro 2016 qualifying results – including a 1-1 draw at home with lowly Moldova – it’s fair to say that the feeling mutual.
Capello is the highest-paid international coach, earning almost twice that of the next-best paid, England’s Roy Hodgson.
“I declare that money to pay salaries [to] Capello at the RFU is not there,” Sergei Stepashin, a member of the executive committee, admitted. He told Interfax the situation has become “extremely unpleasant”,
“It’s wrong, but when they signed the contract they should have thought through how it’s going to be financed. Today we need to look for sources of funding.”
Capello, never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, signed a contract extension last January, which ties him to Russia until they host the World Cup in 2018.
