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ADO sack coach Petrovic

Xinhua, February 7, 2017 Adjust font size:

ADO Den Haag fired coach Zeljko Petrovic due to a series of bad results, the Dutch soccer club announced on Tuesday.

According to a statement by ADO the management board and the supervisory board decided to end the contract by mutual agreement with Petrovic.

"We have the idea that the players group needed anything else and in our conversation it became clear that our coach mostly agreed with us," said Jeffrey van As, only appointed as manager football affairs three weeks ago.

The 51-year-old Montenegrin coach Petrovic started last summer as successor of Henk Fraser, who left for Vitesse. He is the first coach fired in the 2016/2017 Eredivisie season, the highest Dutch division. Assistant Ekrem Kahya will take over his job for now.

ADO dropped to the current 16th position in the Eredivisie, which would mean playing relegation play-offs by the end of the season. After a good start with 10 points from the first 4 matches, the club from The Hague only collected 7 points from the last 17 matches.

"It is a difficult decision," said general director Mattijs Manders. "Zeljko has been working for some time with a small squad and had lots of bad luck with injuries. In addition, there was a lot of unrest surrounding the club."

With this unrest Manders means the financial problems of the club and the damaged relationship with Chinese owner United Vansen (UVS). ADO claimed 2.5 million euros from UVS in a court case in December last year as part of the take-over deal in August 2015. The club received the money by the end of January, but the future course of the club remains uncertain. Enditem