Worries increase at Olympiakos regarding the future of their coach Ernesto Valverde, as the Spaniard has not yet signed his new contract with the Greek champions. Reports in the Greek media now go on about Olympiakos’s Plan B.
The meeting that Valverde had with president Sokratis Kokkalis and director Yiannis Chrysikopoulos had reportedly ended in a deal, although no pen was put on paper.
The days have passed by and Valverde is yet to get a new contract signed, while reports in Spain rage about interest from major clubs such as Atletico Madrid and Sevilla.
The club from Andalusia seems to have approached the agent of Valverde, which makes a bidding for the Basque coach quite likely.
The Spanish agent actually postponed the second meeting that he was going to have with Olympiakos last week, which understandably made Kokkalis less than happy with the situation.
As a result it was Kokkalis himself who decided this week to force a new postponement of their meeting until after the Cup final on May, likely to be on May 4.
Speaking to his players this week Valverde actually implied that he is still in the dark as far as his future is concerned, which in a way makes a mockery out of the Olympiakos statement two weeks ago that talked of a deal.
The Plan B of Olympiakos reportedly concerns another coach with Spanish experience who has already reached a preliminary deal with the Reds. Denmark’s Michael Laudrup, who reached the UEFA Cup final with Getafe, fits that bill.
Former Anorthosis coach Temuri Ketsbaia has also been linked with the Olympiakos bench, although he is also in talks with Atromitos.
Meanwhile, the television rights issue was settled on Thursday for the next three years, allowing most Super League to share over 132 million euros up to 2012.
For the first time after two years of its creation the Super League managed to arrange for a joint sale of television rights for 14 out of the league’s 16 clubs, with Olympiakos and Xanthi being the two exceptions.
The deal provides for satellite platform Nova to screen the majority of matches including the playoffs, while every week free-to-air Skai and NET will air one game each.
ERT will broadcast the home games of Olympiakos and Xanthi on Sundays, while Skai will show one match every Saturday at 4.45 pm, which will be chosen after negotiations with Nova.
The TV rights for the Greek Cup belong to Alpha for next year, but it is not clear whether the free-to-air channel, recently acquired by Germany’s RTL will be inclined to keep hold of the product or sell it to another broadcaster.