Fabio Paratici has taken an immediate leave of absence from his job as Tottenham's managing director of football which means others will need to pick up his duties.
The 50-year-old was handed a 30-month ban by the Italian football federation in January from football-related activities after investigations into financial irregularities at Juventus. On Wednesday, FIFA extended that ban globally and Spurs sought clarification over that decision, which was received on Friday and prompted a club statement.
"This week the FIFA Disciplinary Committee announced a decision to extend the Italian Football Federation sanctions, relating to Fabio Paratici, worldwide," it read. "This decision was taken in advance of Fabio Paratici’s appeal hearing against the FIGC sanctions on April 19, the result of which would then have been considered by additional stakeholders, including the club.
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"Given FIFA’s unexpected ruling the sanctions may now have multi-jurisdictional effect, although they are still related to the FIGC appeal.
"In view of FIFA’s decision, Fabio has agreed with the club that he will take an immediate leave of absence pending the outcome of his appeal."
Now for almost three weeks at least, others must take on the duties of Paratici who flew back from Italy this week after which he addressed the players at Hotspur Way before having a meeting at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium over his next steps.
One of his main duties in the weeks ahead was to push on the process of finding a new head coach to succeed Antonio Conte.
Spurs chairman Daniel Levy, who has been abroad recently, is expected to take on that duty in the mean time as he searches for the 13th manager of his 22-year tenure at the north London club.
Many of Paratici's other duties are expected to fall upon Tottenham's performance director Gretar Steinsson, who normally takes a lot of the non-recruitment aspects of Spurs life off the Italian's workload.
The 41-year-old joined Spurs last summer, having previously been the head of recruitment and development for three years at Everton, having been technical director of Fleetwood Town for four years before that.
Also underneath Paratici in the structure the Italian created is head of football strategy Andy Scoulding. He joined last summer from Scottish side Rangers where he was head of scouting for four years, following previous positions the London-born specialist had with the FA, Salford City, Olympiacos and Valencia.
All eyes will now be on that appeal on April 19 to see exactly what comes next for Paratici and whether his leave of absence will become a more permanent affair and then whether Levy will replace him.
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