Football: Saudis dump their coach
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Your support makes all the difference.FOUR years ago Carlos Alberto Parreira was on top of the world. Yesterday he was reminded that football can be a cruel game, as he was sacked as the coach of Saudi Arabia.
The Brazilian coach who led his country to World Cup triumph in the United States in 1994 was deemed surplus to requirements after two defeats, to Denmark and the host nation, in France. Mohammad al-Kharashi has been put in charge of the team for Wednesday's match against South Africa in Bordeaux, the Saudis' last game of the tournament. He becomes the 10th Saudi coach in the last three years.
After a 4-0 defeat by France on Thursday which ended their team's interest in the tournament, the Saudi Football Federation held an emergency meeting in Paris on Friday at which it was decided to cancel Parreira's contract with immediate effect.
"This is not the way to build a team to be very successful," an angry Parreira said. He was appointed Saudi coach last December; at previous finals he had coached Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates as well as, in 1994, his own country.
Brazil's current coach Mario Zagallo, who worked with Parreira at USA 94, said in support of his former colleague: "To sack a coach in the middle of the World Cup like that is a joke. It's lamentable."
Already without the injured Colin Calderwood and the suspended Darren Jackson, Scotland learned yesterday that the midfielder Billy McKinlay will be unavailable for Tuesday's crucial Group A fixture against Morocco. The Blackburn Rovers player, who has an abdominal muscle strain, has not started a game at the finals, but it is understood that he would have been asked to do a man-marking job on Morocco's Moustafa Hadji in Marseilles had he been fit.
Fifa, world football's governing body, yesterday admitted that the current red card furore had confused France 98 referees. Coaches and players have complained that they do not know what to expect from referees after five players were sent off in two matches on Thursday - more than in the 20 previous matches put together.
Fifa insisted the dismissals were not a panic response to calls from the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, to clamp down on violent play and, especially, tackles from behind. However, Fifa's acting general-secretary, Michel Zen-Ruffinen, a former international referee, saw the referees on Friday along with the former Fifa president, Joao Havelange, to try to sort out the confusion.
"After some remarks they read in the press, the referees were a little bit unsure," Zen-Ruffinen said. While there had been few fouls that had not been spotted, he added it was "not clear to some referees what action they should take, whether they should give a red or yellow card. We said to them: 'Listen gentlemen, remain as you are, just do as you do when you officiate matches at home'."
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