Capello’s promised salary marked him out as the highest paid coach at this year’s World Cup, until the Italian revealed earlier this month he was effectively working for free.
Now the Russian Football Union (RFU) has admitted it simply doesn’t have the cash to pay the hefty salary.
“I can declare that the money to pay Capello is not there,” Sergei Stepashin, a member of the RFU’s executive committee, was quoted in the Guardian newspaper as saying.
“Clearly it’s wrong to fail to pay the salary of your national team’s coach, but when they signed the contract they should really have thought about how to fund it. Today we’re still looking for a source of funding,” he said.
Capello said he was last paid in May, shortly before Russia was booted out of the World Cup at the group stage.
His salary has been estimated at $11.2 million (€9 million), making him the world’s highest-paid coach according to a Forbes ranking.
England’s Roy Hodgson came in second, with a €5.8 million deal, followed by Italy’s then-coach Cesare Prandelli on €4.3 million.
Following Russia’s early exit from the World Cup, Capello was described as a “thief” by a far-right politician and summoned to parliament to explain himself.
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