Football: Zoff told he cannot be coach and president
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Your support makes all the difference.Dino Zoff cannot coach Lazio as well as being the Serie A club's president, the head of the Italian coaches' union said yesterday.
Azeglio Vicini, who also coached Italy to the 1990 World Cup, said that Zoff's appointment as Lazio coach in place of Zdenek Zeman contravened his union's rules. Zeman was fired on Monday.
"He has to decide. Our rules do not allow a president to be a coach too," Vicini insisted. "Of course I am very glad that Zoff is going to coach Lazio, but he has to resign as president."
Zoff, who won the World Cup as Italy's captain and goalkeeper in 1982, is recognised as a coach and was in charge of Lazio before Zeman arrived in 1994 and he moved up to the boardroom. He has said that his return to the bench is only a stop-gap measure, and a new coach will be in charge next season.
The union has protested in the past when clubs have appointed coaches who have not been registered professionally in Italy, where they must pass a qualifying course.
At the start of this season six of the seven foreign coaches then active in Serie A had the title of "technical director" to get around the union's ruling regarding foreigners. They included the Englishman, Roy Hodgson, at Internazionale, whose official coach is the unknown Giovanni Ardemagni.
Another is Sampdoria's Swede, Sven-Goran Eriksson. He has been linked repeatedly with Lazio in recent days - despite having already been named as the new manager of Blackburn Rovers.
The former Milan coach Fabio Capello, now in charge of Real Madrid, is planning to buy the Liberian striker George Weah from his old club, according to reports in Spain.
Weah is being tipped as the summer replacement for Davor Suker, the Croatian forward who has been linked with several English clubs. The Spanish transfer market does not re-open until the close season.
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