Sheffield Wednesday chairman Dejphon Chansiri has claimed manager Darren Moore left the club after asking for a new contract four times bigger than his existing one.
Moore surprisingly departed the Owls earlier this month having guided the club to League One promotion via the play-offs.
Speculation, which Chansiri has called “damaging”, suggested the pair had fallen out over the transfer budget for the forthcoming Championship campaign, but the Thai businessman has now broken his silence, having agreed to initially keep quiet on Moore’s behalf.
Moore is understood not to want to engage in a back-and-forth public debate over his exit out of respect for the Hillsborough club and his position remains the same in the wake of Chansiri’s comments on Thursday.
In a statement on the club’s official website, Chansiri said: “After the end of the season, we had achieved promotion and as far as I was concerned, there was no issue. We completed the retained list on Thursday, 1 June and began discussing the recruitment of new players, the targets identified for the Championship, and I asked Darren to summarise and present.
“We arranged to talk the following week in order to prepare the final information and begin coordinating the process.
“Darren went on holiday and we spoke again during his holiday. We talked more about the recruitment of players, then Darren mentioned the contracts of his coaching team, which expired at the end of June. I asked Darren to send me his proposals for them because I was happy to talk.
“He then mentioned his own contract which I said was automatically active following our promotion. But I said I was happy to discuss a new contract and asked Darren to send me the details and his proposals so I can study them.
“After a few days, he sent me his proposals for his contract and I asked Darren to rethink and said, ‘Are you sure?’. I asked him if this proposal was instigated by his agent and Darren told me it was a guideline. I asked Darren if he wanted an answer ‘yes or no’ or can we talk again? Darren said it was a guideline and he would think about the details again.
“We arranged to meet face to face in my office on Wednesday, 14 June. We talked some more about players and Darren asked about the contracts of his coaching staff. I said we needed Darren to resolve his own situation first because whilever this was an issue, we could not talk further about his staff.
“I said we need a conclusion before Thursday as we could not take too long when we needed to begin the recruitment process. Even if we could not agree, this is the football business, but we would still maintain friendly relations with each other, but we need to resolve this situation.
“I told Darren I was happy for him to stay, he achieved promotion and deserved a chance in the Championship. I said I was happy to increase his salary and add more bonuses into the contract, with the highest bonus if we reached the Premier League.
“But the proposal Darren presented was significantly in excess of his contract and I said I cannot offer a minimum of four times your current salary on a three-year contract, I have to be realistic and protect the club.
“I advised Darren to rethink very carefully, do you really think this is a good idea? I offered my full support during all his time at our club and I wanted us to continue and succeed together.
“We met again on Thursday 15 June and Darren told me that he could not accept. I said, ‘OK, that is your decision and I don’t think it will be difficult for you to get another job’. I said I would help Darren by announcing his departure via mutual consent because that will help for the future.”
The Owls have yet to appoint Moore’s replacement, with Dean Smith among those linked with the vacancy.
Indonesia 0-4 Japan: Visitors stay unbeaten with rout
Japan continued their unbeaten start to World Cup qualifying with a 4-0 victory over Indonesia on Friday.
Two goals from the visitors in either half were enough to seal the three points and get them back to winning ways after a stalemate with Australia last time out.
Ragnar Oratmangoen should have put Indonesia ahead, but he hesitated one-on-one with the goalkeeper, and Japan did not look back after that. They got a bit of fortune with their first goal, Justin Hubner deflecting a cross into his own net in the 35th minute.
Takumi Minamino got their second just before the break, finishing off a pacy counter-attack by darting onto the end of Kaoru Mitoma’s cross to sweep it past Maarten Paes.
While there was not much the goalkeeper could do with that one, he was at fault for the third as he gifted the ball to Hidemasa Morita, who coolly picked out the bottom corner just after the break.
Yukinari Sugawara came off the bench to round off the scoring in the 69th minute. He raced down the right wing and instead of looking to his options, he rifled it in from a tight angle at the near post.
Japan are up to 13 points after five games, sitting top of Group C, while Indonesia are bottom, still in search of their first win.
Data Debrief: Clinically done
For a team still chasing their first win, Japan are probably not high on the list of opponents they would want to face, and Indonesia were undone by their visitors.
Hajime Moriyasu's side created 0.79 expected goals (xG) to Indonesia's 0.72, while they only had four more shots than their hosts (12 compared to eight).
Japan took their chances, and though the win margin may look harsh, they were deserving of the three points, having dominated throughout the game.
Jamaica 0-1 United States: Pepi give visitors advantage in Nations League quarter-final
Ricardo Pepi's first-half strike gave the United States a 1-0 advantage over Jamaica after the first leg of their Concacaf Nations League quarter-final.
The hosts saw a penalty saved in the first half before their frustrations were compounded late on thanks to Mason Holgate's red card.
The USA had the lead just five minutes in – having smothered a Jamaica attack at one end, the visitors caught them out with a pacy counter-attack, with Pepi sweeping it into the back of the net.
Shortly after, Shamar Nicholson was brought down by Matt Turner when he tried to take it around him, but the goalkeeper made amends, diving low to his right to deny Demarai Gray from 12 yards.
In the second half, Holgate was denied a tap-in by Yunus Musah before Turner scrambled to stop Leon Bailey's corner from nestling into the net as Jamaica searched for an equaliser.
With 86 minutes on the clock, Holgate received a second yellow card in just over 10 minutes for dragging Brandon Vazquez back, meaning he will miss the return leg in Missouri on Monday.
Data Debrief: Hitting the mark
Pepi got the all-important goal on Thursday, and is the fourth player to score 12 goals for the USA before turning 22 years old, joining Landon Donovan, Jozy Altidore and Christian Pulisic.
But it was perhaps Turner who actually had the most vital interventions; he has now saved three of the eight penalties he's faced for the USA, including two against Jamaica.
Mauricio Pochettino also could not have asked for a better result from his first competitive game in charge of the Stars and Stripes as he became just the third full-time manager to win his first competitive away match, joining Bob Bradley (2008) and Steve Sampson (1996).
Real Madrid hit Twente for seven, five-star Wolfsburg also win big
Real Madrid had six different goalscorers as they trounced Twente 7-0 in the Women's Champions League on Wednesday, while Wolfsburg beat Galatasaray 5-0.
Signe Bruun opened the scoring three minutes into the Group B encounter at the Estadio Alfredo Di Stefano, then Maria Mendez's header gave Madrid a 2-0 half-time lead.
Madrid, who had won one and lost one of their opening two games in the tournament, got a third through Naomie Feller five minutes into the second half, then Caroline Weir made it 4-0 with a brilliant free-kick.
Mendez headed home her second of the encounter shortly after the hour mark, while Oihane Hernandez and Carla Camacho got on the scoresheet late on to complete the rout.
The victory took Madrid second in the Group B standings ahead of Chelsea's trip to Celtic.
Wolfsburg were also convincing victors in Group A, getting off the mark for this season's competition as Rebecka Blomqvist scored a hat-trick in their 5-0 thrashing of Galatasaray.
The Bundesliga side – who failed to pick up a point or score a goal in their opening two matches – had a narrow 1-0 lead at half-time through Joelle Wedemeyer, before Blomqvist took centre-stage in the second period.
She tapped home after Janina Minge struck the crossbar, then added her second goal in the 77th minute and her third six minutes into stoppage time.
Vivien Endemann powered home a fifth for Wolfsburg one minute later, as they provisionally moved within three points of Lyon and Roma ahead of their meeting.
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