German coach Marcus Gisdol left his job as coach of Russia’s Lokomotiv Moscow football club on Tuesday in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Lokomotiv simply said that Gisdol was “removed from the post of head coach” after less than four months at the helm. He told the German tabloid Bild that it was a gesture of protest against work in a country “whose head of state is responsible for an aggressive war in the middle of Europe”.
“I can’t stand on the training field in Moscow, training the players, demanding professionalism, and orders are issued a few kilometers away, which bring great suffering to the whole nation,” Gisdol told the newspaper.
The locomotive is owned by Russian Railways, which was placed under US sanctions last week. Gisdol was appointed in October by then-sporting director Ralph Rangnik, who later coached Manchester United.
Former Liverpool and Ukraine striker Andriy Voronin has resigned as assistant coach of Dynamo Moscow, and Ukrainian goalkeeper Yaroslav Hodzur has left another club, Ural Ekaterinburg. The president of the Urals told TASS that a second Ukrainian player would follow.
Others remain in place. “I’m not one to take a ticket and fly,” Dynamo Germany head coach Sandro Schwartz said in a comment posted in Russian on the club’s website on Saturday. “It’s not me. I feel responsible and I will be in the club.”
The Russian Premier League continued to operate despite the war, while the Ukrainian Premier League was halted when the invasion began last week. Brazilian players from clubs in Ukraine have turned to their government for help in leaving the country.