After several dramatic and chaotic days, the professional football club Start in Kristiansand has agreed on a severance package with its head coach Kjetil Rekdal. He’d suddenly been relieved of his duties last week because of complaints filed against him, but Rekdal defied any suspension and turned up to coach the club at its league opener on Saturday.
The chaos around Rekdal proved to be intolerable for both sides. After a lengthy meeting on Monday, both Rekdal and the club’s management decided it was best that they part ways. The leader of Start’s board, Monica Grimstad, said the settlement with Rekdal was agreed to “out of consideration for the club and our employees and the burden they’ve had to carry, and would have had to continue to carry if the process had continued.”
Grimstad declined to detail the “process” that began with the complaints about unspecified aspects of Rekdal’s leadership that, according to Grimstad, were “not compatible with the club’s values.” The nature of the complaints against Rekdal, who just took over as Start’s head coach last year, has not been revealed.
Rekdal told reporters he “didn’t want to go into the process.” He said he had a “good, long, fruitful and constructive conversation (with Start’s leaders) about everything. We agreed this is the best outcome for everyone.”
newsinenglish.no staff