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Soccer

Russia appoints CSKA's Leonid Slutsky as new national coach

By FoxSports
Published | Updated

MOSCOW (AP) Russia appointed CSKA Moscow's Leonid Slutsky as the new national coach on a short-term deal to rescue its 2016 European Championship qualifying campaign.

Slutsky replaces Fabio Capello, who departed last month after poor results left Russia sitting third in Group G, outside the automatic qualifying places.

Slutsky's contract runs only until the end of the qualifying campaign in October for group games, or November for the playoffs.

Russia's first home-grown coach for nine years, Slutsky won the Russian Premier League title with CSKA in 2013 and 2014, and will combine his roles with club and country.

''The leadership of Russian football came to our club with a request to let me head up the national team,'' Slutsky said on the CSKA website. ''Taking into account the difficult situation the national team has ended up in, I couldn't refuse the offer. To manage your country's team is a great honor and responsibility.''

Slutsky takes over a team which has won just twice in its last 10 competitive games. Of those victories, one was against Liechtenstein, while the other was awarded by default when crowd trouble forced a match against Montenegro to be abandoned.

His appointment has the backing of influential Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, who is in line to be elected unopposed as the Russian Football Union's new president in September.

Slutsky was ''precisely the kind of specialist who will be able to complete the task of reaching the 2016 European Championship,'' Mutko said on the football union's website.

No financial details of Slutsky's contract were made public, but he is likely to earn markedly less than Capello, who was paid a reported 7 million euros ($7.6 million) a year, a sum which earned the Italian hostility from Russian politicians and fans who considered him overpaid.

Russian football has endured turbulent times off the pitch, with the RFU consumed by infighting and with debts that meant Capello regularly went unpaid during his three-year tenure. Billionaire businessman and Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov repeatedly stepped in to pay Capello's unpaid wages, and at least part of his severance payment.