Age no barrier for Sevidov

Olexander Sevidov has become the youngest coach in the Ukrainian Premier League after taking charge of FC Metalurh Donetsk on a temporary basis.

Assistants named
The 33-year-old replaces Semen Altman who resigned last week. Sevidov's first task will be to prepare the team for their pre-season training camp in Spain next month. A former FC Shakhtar Donetsk player, he will be assisted by Serhiy Yaschenko and Serhiy Zolotnitskiy, both of whom are also former Shakhtar players.

Foreign coach
Sevidov has been with the club since their inception in 1996, seeing Melaturh rise to the top flight. He acted as the reserve-team coach in 2001 before stepping up to assist Altman in July 2002. However, it does not appear that Sevidov is in for a long tenure at the Metalurh stadium as club president Serhiy Taruta has reiterated his desire to employ a foreign coach.

Scala example
"The time has come to make a choice as to whether we want to be a domestic player or a serious European club," Taruta said. "Metalurh are determined to become the latter and we feel a foreign coach will provide us with the best chance of doing so. The example of Nevio Scala at Shakhtar proves that we are making the correct choice."

Hagi tipped
The president added: "We trust Sevidov. We are, however, hoping to conclude negotiations with a few European coaches in the near future." Strong rumours suggest Romanian legend Gheorghe Hagi is the leading candidate to take over at Metalurh, who are currently fifth in the top flight, ten points behind leaders Shakhtar.