Bayer Leverkusen sack coach Vogts

Bayer Leverkusen have sacked their coach Berti Vogts despite his team having earned a Champions League qualification spot at the weekend.

The club said the former Germany head coach, who had a contract running until June 2003, was informed of his dismissal after a crisis meeting on Sunday night.

Vogts, 54, who coached Germany from 1990 to 1998, leading them to the European championship in 1996, had been criticised for failing to win the Bundesliga title in his first season at the club.

Runners-up for the previous two years, Leverkusen ended the season fourth overall behind champions Bayern Munich, Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund. They will now play in the qualifying round of the Champions League, bidding for a place in the opening group phase of the competition.

Vogts, who had never coached a Bundesliga club when he was appointed last November, had struggled to adapt.

He was involved in a row with his players earlier this season and offered to step down.

Fans called for his dismissal in a lacklustre 1-0 win over bottom club VfL Bochum in the team's final match of the season on Saturday.

TOUGH TASK
The former German international faced a tough task at Leverkusen, replacing Christoph Daum, who quit amid a drugs scandal after turning the club from a small industrial town outside Cologne into Bayern Munich's most dangerous rivals.

Earlier this month Vogts said he might pursue his management career abroad because he felt he did not get sufficient recognition in his home country.

A tireless if not spectacular defender in his playing days, Vogts helped Borussia Moenchengladbach win five German titles and two UEFA Cups in the 1970s.

He won 96 caps for Germany and was a member of the great side led by Franz Beckenbauer who won the 1974 World Cup.

In 1990 he became the Germany coach, replacing Beckenbauer, who had just guided the team to victory at the World Cup finals in Italy.

His finest moment as coach came in 1996 when Germany beat the Czech Republic in the European championship final at Wembley.

But unlike Beckenbauer, he was never at ease under the spotlight and had a difficult relationship with the media.

He had been under sustained fire when he stepped down in 1998 in the wake of Germany's shock quarter-final exit from the World Cup finals in France.

Klaus Toppmoeller, who last coached second-division Saarbruecken, is regarded as the favourite to replace him.

The club were to hold a news conference later on Monday.