Kolkata: Mohun Bagan football club accepted the resignation of coach Steve Darby on Saturday and appointed former Nigerian footballer Bernard Operanazie in the Englishman's place.
Bernard was working as an assistant coach under Darby, who submitted his resignation on Saturday morning, as the club authority appointed a three-member technical committee comprising Olympian Chuni Goswami and former internationals Prasanta Banerjee and Satyajit Chatterjee.
Darby protested the constitution of the three-member technical committee by the club management to monitor practice and give inputs on team-building.
Darby, who was appointed coach four months ago replacing Subhas Bhowmick, said he found the presence of the technical committee unacceptable.
"I have resigned form the position of coach as I am unable to work with the technical committee," Darby said in an SMS to the media.
Confirming the appointment of Bernard, Mohun Bagan secretary Anjan Mitra said that whoever was appointed the coach of the club, he would have to work under the committee.
Mitra said that the club was looking for a chief coach for the team.
"Yes, I have received his resignation letter," club general secretary Anjan Mitra told IANS.
"I hope this will work well and the club will deliver in the coming tournaments, especially in the prestigious I-League," he added.
The Bagan management, which was cut-up with the coach after the club's disastrous showing in the recent Federation Cup, appointed the three-member panel on October 10.
The committee was slated to start functioning from October 24 onwards. The development comes after Bagan's unceremonious ouster from the group league stage of the Federation Cup - a tournament they have won 13 times - with defeats to rookies Royal Wahingdoh and Lajong. Mohun Bagan got only one point from their three outings.
There was lot of speculation then that Darby could face the axe, but following the intervention of sponsors UB group, the Bagan management was forced to give some more time to the coach.
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