Munteanu will officially head Kuban four days prior to the start of the season

The Romanian head coach of Mordovia will be able to leave the club without compensation after 30 days from the moment of his resignation. The protracted story of the termination of the contract of Dorinel Munteanu, the Romanian specialist, with the FC Mordovia is drawing to a close. The 45 year old specialist, pursuant to the norms and regulations of FIFA and the RFU, will be able to officially conclude the cooperation with the club of Saransk by July 4.

When the last season was over, the head coach of the Saransk team wrote his resignation and agreed on a four-year contract with Kuban. However, the management of Mordovia refused to let the Romanian specialist go claiming the agreement with him, that was valid until the summer of 2014. Thus the appointment of Munteanu as the head coach of the Krasnodar club became suspended, since the specialist cannot receive the documents in Saransk which he needs for his new employment.

Leonid Istrati, the agent of the Romanian coach, confirmed to Izvestia: “Dorinel Munteanu wrote the resignation request on June 10, but the management of Mordovia refused it. As of today, there has been no progress on the matter. The club is perfectly aware of the head coach’s desire to head Kuban, but there has been no concrete decision. Pay compensation to the club? Let them request it. They haven’t yet”.

We remind that, after Mordovia lost the play off in the FNL, Munteanu orally agreed with the management that the team will maintain the coach. However, the offer from Kuban, which suddenly lost its head coach after Leonid Kuchuk refused to prorogate the agreement with the Krasnodar club and headed Lokomotiv, changed the situation drastically.

Izvestia requested Mikhail Prokopets, a known sports lawyer of the Law Firm "YUST", to explain the confused situation around the club and its head coach from the point of view of sports law.

Mikhail Prokopets said: “As far as I am aware, the contract between Munteanu and Mordovia contains no sanctions or kickback for termination. In this case, the FC Mordovia must dismiss the Romanian specialist and give him the work record book within 30 days of his resignation”.

According to the norms and regulations of FIFA and the RFU, the status of a player is different from that of the coach from the legal point of view. If a player found himself in a similar situation, he would be disqualified and fined. But such sanctions may only be applied to a coach, only if such condition is included in the contract. In other words, a coach here, from the legal viewpoint, is no different from, say, a school teacher. He wrote his resignation, and no sanctions may be applied to him for that. Munteanu is free to leave and head any other club after 30 days, and if Mordovia refuses to dismiss him when that period is up, it will breach the law and be penalized.

Munteanu is the current record holder of the Romanian national team by the number of the matches held (134). When Dorinel terminated his player’s career, he worked as the head coach for several Romanian clubs. Munteanu headed Mordovia in December of 2012, replacing Fedor Scherbachenko.

The club of Saransk headed by the Romanian specialist was unable to maintain its place among the elite of the Russian football, but despite this the team under his leadership achieved serious progress and improved its results. In June Dorinel reached an oral agreement with Kuban.

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