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MOSCOW (AP) — Leonid Slutsky will quit as CSKA Moscow coach after Wednesday's Champions League game against Tottenham.
The club's longest serving coach in over 60 years, Slutsky has been with CSKA since 2009 and won three Russian Premier League titles, including last season. However, he has been criticized by fans following some poor performances this season which have left CSKA third in the Russian league and with no chance of reaching the Champions League knockout rounds.
Until June, Slutsky was also coach of the Russian national team, but quit when it was eliminated from the European Championship without winning a game.
"Seven years is a huge amount of time for a coach and these years have been the best of my coaching career," Slutsky said in a statement on CSKA's website. "I think we can be proud of the work we have done."
As well as criticism over CSKA's performances on the pitch, Slutsky had also faced anti-Semitic abuse from some rival fans in recent months after he took part in an advertisement for a Jewish cultural center.
CSKA said Slutsky's departure was voluntary and that a new coach would be named by the end of the week.
The frontrunner for the CSKA job is widely considered to be Viktor Goncharenko, the coach of Russian top-flight side Ural Yekaterinburg. He was previously Slutsky's assistant at CSKA and coach of Belarusian team BATE Borisov.
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