On Friday morning the football world woke up to the news that Mehmet Durakovic’s services have been terminated after only six months in the position. This follows his old South Melbourne team mate Francis Awaritefe being shown the door a month ago as Football Director.
These two key football appointments were made to herald a new era at Melbourne Victory, and both ended up as calamitous decisions.
Chairman Anthony Del Pietro sat in the hot seat this morning to announce the distasteful news to a packed media room keen to make the point that his board had got it wrong twice.
A clearly uncomfortable Del Pietro faced the press and had this to say: “We gave Mehmet every opportunity to achieve success this season but we found we were inconsistent and without direction.”
Del Pietro made the point that recruiting has its risks but shied away from admitting his board had made a mistake on both appointments.
One journalist made it very clear that Victory members have a right to answers and questioned whether they can trust this current board in making the next appointment.
Durakovic, a true gentleman of the game, is now left to pick up the pieces of his coaching career as Victory seek a new appointment which could be announced within 48 hours of the Durakovic announcement. It seems the Victory board have been working hard behind the scenes to replace Durakovic with rumours within the game saying 46-year-old Englishman Ian Dowie is in pole position to take on the role after nearly two years out of the game since his last position as temporary coach of Hull City which lasted five weeks.
We hope the biggest club in the land can find some stability after a tumultuous month of sackings and find some form on the field as time is running out for them in 2012.