from Tuesday Football Rumors on BBC Sport.
Veteran Coventry and Trinidad and Tobago striker Stern John is being targeted by wealthy Israeli outfit Beitar Jerusalem. (Daily Mirror)
Shklar leaves Betar
By JEREMY LAST (Jerusalem Post)
25 Dec 2006
Betar Jerusalem chairman Vladimir Shklar agreed to leave the Premier League club on Sunday, a year and a half after he joined the team.
Shklar was brought in by owner Arkadi Gaydamak to run the day-to-day affairs at Betar not long after the Russian billionaire bought the club in the summer of 2005. The pair met on Sunday and by the afternoon, Shklar had vacated his position by mutual consent.
Despite the fact that Betar is currently in first place in the Premier League, there has been continuing unrest at the club and Shklar had been blamed for the lack of stability.
Eli Arazi, a former commander of the Israel Police special forces unit, is believed to be the top candidate to take over as chairman.
Shklar, who previously worked for the Jerusalem municipality, was seen as being responsible for the hiring of Argentinian Ossie Ardiles as head coach this past summer, a move which eventually backfired in November when Gaydamak ruled that Ardiles should be fired and replaced by Yossi Mizrahi.
Ardiles was given a relatively free hand by Shklar in choosing players to bring to the team, and one, fellow Argentinian Christian Fabiani, was last week asked to leave as Mizrahi did not see a future for him at the club.
Although Shklar was seen as a close confidante of Gaydamak, it appeared that the owner was not satisfied with the team's performances considering the millions of shekels he has pumped into Betar.
Mizrahi was due to travel to England this past weekend and is believed to be interested in signing Coventry City's Stern John, a striker who used to play for Nottingham Forest and Manchester City, to replace Fabiani.
