Sinai suspended over failed exam

Israel's under-21 coach Moshe Sinai has been suspended over a failed academic examination, the Israel Football Association (IFA) has revealed.

Israeli law
Sinai, 41, a former national team captain in the 1980s, has been in charge of the U21s for over two years. A report in the Israeli daily Maariv revealed that he had not earned a football coach's diploma as required by Israeli law and the rules of the IFA.

Coaching course
Sinai underwent a coaching course at Israel's main sports academy, the Wingate Sports Institute, but failed an exam in anatomy which he has vowed to retake as soon as possible. He was told by IFA chief Gavri Levi of his decision to suspend him.
Levi then said that the IFA would be much more careful who it employs in future.

'Not happen again'
"From now on, we will scrutinise all the diplomas of all the coaches who work within the IFA and in Israeli soccer. A thing like this will not happen again," Levi said.

'Plan my studies'
Sinai said he would put his mind to academic matters immediately. "The truth of the matter is that all coaches don't understand much about anatomy, but I have to get this over with. I will go to Wingate on Sunday to plan my studies," he said. "I have been involved in soccer for over 20 years, I was national team captain and I coached in the top division."

Training camp
Before he heard of the decision, Sinai, who has previously coached Hapoel Tel-Aviv FC, Maccabi Petach-Tikva and Hapoel Kfar-Saba, named a 21-man squad for a training camp to be held next week which he was due to oversee. That task will now fall to national team assistant coach, Yossi Mizrahi.