Hubert Fournier became the second Ligue 1 coach in two days to be replaced when he was removed from the hot seat at mid-table Olympique Lyonnais on Thursday, the seven-time champions announced.
Lyon said that Fournier’s No. 2, Bruno Genesio, is to take charge from Monday when he will prepare the team for their first game after the winter break, a Coupe de France clash against Limoges the following Sunday.
“Different ideas were studied... the decision was taken to entrust the team to Bruno Genesio, at least until the end of the season,” Lyon said in a statement which did not mention Fournier by name.
Photo: AFP
Lyon are currently in ninth place in the table, a huge 25 points behind runaway leaders Paris Saint-Germain.
They lost 2-1 at Gazelec Ajaccio last weekend and have taken just one point from a possible 18 in their past six matches.
“The decision was taken in my soul and conscious of the need to qualify for the Champions League. Happy Christmas to everyone,” Lyon president Jean-Michel Aulas tweeted.
Fournier had been in charge since June last year after leaving Stade de Reims, but he had been under pressure since last month when Lyon were eliminated from the UEFA Champions League at the group stage.
Genesio, 49, is a former Lyon player having joined the club in 1971 as a junior, before making the first team from 1985 to 1995. He went on to play for OGC Nice and Martigues.
On Wednesday, Rolland Courbis quit as coach of struggling Montpellier Herault following a run of seven games without a win which has left the team in danger of relegation.
The 62-year-old Courbis had been in his second spell at the club, returning in December 2013 after two years in charge from 2007 to 2009.
Courbis steered Montpellier to seventh place last season, but the team were 15th going into the winter break, just three points above the relegation places following a run of six losses in seven games.
In all, five Ligue 1 coaches have been dispensed with this season — Fournier, Courbis, Jean-Marc Furlan at ESTAC Troyes, Herve Renard at Lille OSC and Marcelo Bielsa, who quit Olympique de Marseille on the first day of the season.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but