Cardiff City sack manager Mackay

LONDON — Malky Mackay has been sacked by Cardiff after months of public disagreements with club’s owner Vincent Tan.

The news comes just five days after Mehmet Dalman, Cardiff’s chairman, said that Mackay would be in charge for “the foreseeable future”. Instead, Mackay, who led the Welsh club into the top flight for the first time in 51 years, was this morning (Dec 27) told that he had been relieved of his duties. Vincent Tan, Cardiff’s owner, finally got his way.

There was a sense of inevitability about the decision, which has been coming for months, ever since Iain Moody, the club’s head of recruitment, was sacked in October. Mackay’s position was undermined from that point on and his position became untenable when he was issued with an extraordinary email at the start of last week, ordering him to resign or face being sacked. Mackay was adamant that he would continue.

Although that ultimatum was withdrawn after the 3-1 defeat at Liverpool last Saturday, following talks between Dalman and Tan, the news that Mackay would continue in his post felt like no more than a stay of execution. That proved to be the case when Tan responded to the 3-0 home defeat against Southampton on Boxing Day by sacking Mackay less than 24 hours later.

A brief statement on the club website said: “The Board of Directors at Cardiff City Football Club have today relieved Malky Mackay of his duties. A new first team manager will be appointed and announced in due course.”

Mackay had been appointed Cardiff’s manager in the summer of 2011. He led the club to the League Cup final that season, where they lost to Liverpool on penalties, and reached the play-offs. In his second season in charge Cardiff won the Championship title. They are currently 16th in the Premier League, one point and two places above the relegation zone.

Yesterday, Mackay insisted that he was doing a good job, in difficult circumstances. “Myself and my staff knew exactly how tough this was going to be this season, as did the players and the media,” he said. “We are competing well, there are games we should have won, there are games we should have done better in.

“This is a season where I firmly believe we can stay in this league and build on it. There are plenty of good people at this football club, in terms of staff and players, all pulling in one direction and we believe we can do that.

Earlier, the agent of Yilmaz Vural, the Turkish journeyman who has been linked with the Cardiff job, mischievously tweeted that “explosive” events lie ahead. Muzzi Ozcan tweeted: “The story is coming to a End in Wales and a new story will be born ... The next 48 hours will be explosive!” THE GUARDIAN