'Partying' Gullit faces last Chechnya chance

Posted Tuesday, June 14, 2011 by YAHOO Sport

MOSCOW (AFP) - The Russian managerial career of Dutch legend Ruud Gullit was on the line on Tuesday after he was accused by the strongman leader of Chechnya of caring more about parties than his Terek Grozny club.

Gullit and his unfancied side from war-ravaged Chechnya travelled on Tuesday to a crunch away match at fellow Russian Premier League strugglers Amkar Perm that Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has said he must win or face the sack.

The 48-year-old international celebrity and two time world football player of the year stunned observers this year by accepting an invitation from Kadyrov to head Terek.

The honeymoon was short-lived after Terek started the season with three wins from 12 matches and tensions came to a boil this week when the club issued a furious statement accusing Gullit of leading a playboy's lifestyle.

"Gullit has to know he was not invited so that he could go hiding in nightclubs and discos, but to work in a football club," the football club said in an extraordinary statement posted on the Chechen government's website.

It also accused Gullit being disrespectful of Chechnya Muslim traditions and "crossing the boundaries of civil behaviour".

"Recently, the coach has been trying to find fault with anyone but himself," the republic's sports minister Haidar Alkhanov told NTV television.

The match starting at 1345 GMT sees 14th-place Terek—third from bottom in Russia's top flight—face the club directly above them and on same goal difference as the Chechen side.

The possibility of Gullit being axed by Kadyrov—a hate figure among rights groups and a man of great power and allegedly immense wealth—topped some national television broadcasts and provoked loud debate among fans.

"Ruud Gullit has to come back with the three points. Anything else and he will be relieved of his duties as coach," said Kadyrov in a statement late on Monday.

The Sovietsky Sport daily said that Gullit was reportedly "shocked" by Kadyrov's comments and had promised do his best to win Tuesday's match.

But other commentators said victory in the Ural Mountains city will hardly revive Gullit's Russian career or preserve a contract worth a reported two million dollars.