Hyderabad: Hyderabad Football Club (Hyderabad FC) management sacked its head coach Thangboi Singto, owing to the team’s poor performance in the Indian Super League (ISL), on Wednesday, December 18.
In a statement, the management said that the club and the coach have “mutually decided to part ways with immediate effect.”
The top-flight club of Hyderabad sits in the second-last position in the current season’s ISL table, with 7 points from 11 games. The club was able to register only two wins in this campaign so far, drawing one and losing in 8 games.
The team’s next games are at their home ground GMC Balayogi Athletic Stadium Gachibowli, where they will host Northeast United on December 23 and East Bengal FC on December 28.
The 50-year-old coach from Manipur, Singto has been the assistant coach of the Hyderabad FC senior team since the 2022-23 season, after serving as the assistant coach and technical director of the youth team since 2020.
He was appointed senior team head coach in 2023 after the team parted ways with Irish coach Conor Nestor.
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Ownership change in Hyderabad FC
The club ownership was taken over recently in September, with the Jindal Group taking over the reins of the club from the former majority share owner Varun Tripuraneni, the club’s co-founder.
Though relatively successful, the club was marred with financial difficulties at the time of the takeover. The new owners Jindal Group cleared the financial issues of the club with their investment. The outgoing co-owner Varun Tripuraneni thanked the club’s co-owners including Rana Daggubatti and other participants at the cub, in a statement confirming the takeover.
The Nizams of Hyderabad
The club, fondly called The Nizams, was founded in 2019 when the owners bought the ISL franchise of the disbanded Pune FC club and gifted Hyderabad its own ISL club. Hyderabad FC, which finished at the bottom of the league in their debut season in 2019, won the ISL championship in just their third season in the 2021-22 season, making them one of the most successful young football clubs in India.
The club is known for its road to success with young Indian players, rather than spending big on foreign players.
