Sporting Lisbon fires coach Boloni after lacklustre season

Sporting Lisbon said it will replace Laszlo Boloni as coach of the under-performing team at the end of the season.

"Sporting informed today the coach of its main team, Laszlo Boloni, that the job contract that connects him to this organization will cease being effective at the end of this current sports season," the club said in a statement.

Boloni left his post as the coach of Romania's national team in June 2001 to sign on with Sporting for two years in June 2001.

He led Sporting to the Portuguese club and league cup double last season during his first full year with the team, but the club's board is said to be disappointed with the team's poor performance this season.

Sporting are currently 22 points behind runaway leaders FC Porto and 11 points below city rivals Benfica.

Boloni has blamed a series of player injuries for the club's below par season and had said he would like to stay on with Sporting.

"It is unfair to judge my work merely on sports results," he told sports daily Record last month.

Sporting thanked Boloni in the statement for the victories he gave the team but said it had already begun the process of selecting a new manager "whose profile is already defined, which will guarantee to Sporting fans that the new season will be carefully prepared."

Earlier this month Portuguese media tipped former FC Porto, AEK Athens and Panathinaikos boss Fernando Santos to take over in the summer at Sporting.

Santos has been out of work since he left Greece's Panathinaikos in October because of the team's poor start in the Greek league championship.