French sports minister endorses Domenech´s sacking

French Sports Minister Rama Yade waded into the row over the fate of national team coach Raymond Domenech on Friday, saying he deserved the boot after Les Bleus’ disastrous showing in Euro 2008.

“We should have replaced the coach after the fiasco at Euro 2008 and judged him on those bad results,” Yade told a French radio station, two days after France lost 2-0 to Spain in a friendly match.

“It is a shame to see this poor style of play. We’ve got some great individual players but the manager has been so far unable to shape a team.”

France went into Euro 2008 as one of the favourites but suffered the embarrassment of being dumped out in the first round and finished bottom of their group.

Nevertheless, Domenech kept his job and his side scraped through their World Cup qualification campaign after beating Ireland in a playoff 2-1 at the Stade de France in Paris last October.