BASTIA, France, April 13 - Struggling Ligue 1 club
Bastia sacked coach Francois Ciccolini on Wednesday because of
the team's poor results this season.
Ciccolini will be replaced by his assistants Michel Padovani
and Eric Durand until the end of the season, club chairman Louis
Multari told after a board meeting.
"We have decided to relieve Francois Ciccolini of his first
team duties," he said. "It was a difficult decision to take
because Francois Ciccolini is a very honest man.
"He has accepted our decision and we have offered to allow
him to go back to his former job as head of our youth academy."
The 42-year-old Ciccolini took charge of Bastia's first team
at the beginning of the season.
He is the seventh Ligue 1 coach to be sacked this season,
joining Strasbourg's Antoine Kombouare, AC Ajacccio's Dominique
Bijotat, Olympique Marseille's Jose Anigo, Nantes's Loic Amisse,
RC Lens' Joel Muller and Paris Saint-Germain's Vahid
Halilhodzic.
Bastia, who are second bottom of the 20-team table on 29
points from 32 games, host seventh-placed Toulouse on Saturday.