Russian football boss under threat over unpaid Capello wages

MOSCOW: Russia's Football Union (RFU) boss Nikolai Tolstykh faces the sack over a six-month failure to pay the wages of national team manager Fabio Capello, local media reported Monday.

A deadline -- issued in December by Russia's labour agency -- to pay off Capello's back wages expires on Monday.

The 68-year-old Italian manager signed a new lucrative contract with RFU last year which covers the 2018 World Cup hosted by Russia. Capello reportedly is the world's highest paid coach with a salary of around 7 million euros.

However, he had not been paid for more than six months and the RFU debt has reached the sum of 600 million roubles ($9.2 million, 7.9 million euros) including the taxes.

The Italian coach who took charge of Russia's squad in 2012 reportedly expressed a desire to rip up his contract with RFU.

"I haven't been paid according to my contract for months," Sportbox.ru site quoted Capello as saying.

"I am getting close to the limit. I am somewhere near."

In this case the RFU penalty may reach the sum of 25 million euros, which is specified in Capello's contract.

Russia's football boss Tolstykh, who has already been fined for Capello's payment arrears, may now be discharged from his post and banned from the sport for up to three years, local media reported.

"We're making every effort to clear off Capello's wage overdue," Tolstykh told the press last week.

"We're set to use any official source of funding to comply Capello's contract."

The RFU debacle is particularly embarrassing as Russia is already preparing to host the 2018 World Cup with a forecasted cost of $14.4 billion (12.4 billion euros), half of which is supposed to come from private investment and half from the state budget.

Monday's deadline to pay off former England coach Capello coincided with a visit to Moscow by the head of European football's governing body UEFA's Michel Platini.

But UEFA said that Platini meeting with Tolstykh was not connected with Capello's wage dispute, Russia's state-owned news agency RIA Novosti reported.