Former Swansea manager Michael Laudrup continued to hit out at his “silly” and “incredible” sacking by the Premier League club on Tuesday as he vowed to maintain his legal action against the Welsh side.
A fortnight ago the Denmark football great was dismissed by Swansea, less than a year after guiding the club to the first major trophy in its history – the English League Cup.
At the time Laudrup issued a statement via England’s League Managers’ Association that he would take legal action against the south Wales side.
Since then he’d said nothing in public about his dismissal but on Tuesday he took the extremely unusual step of calling a press conference at a hotel near London’s Heathrow Airport to air his grievances.
“On one part it has been positive to see all the reaction from other clubs and commentators, saying ‘what has he done (wrong)? It can’t be last year’,” Laudrup, one of the outstanding midfielders of his generation, said. “You can argue that you can’t live in the past, but even this year we’re there in the FA Cup, there in the Europa League.
“The last two months we had a bad run, but you still have the same points as 11 teams and only three go down.
“On the other hand, it has been negative for me because I couldn’t say anything.
“I had to wait nine days for a letter that said a lot of very silly things, which I can’t reveal. I was just blocked and then, of course, Michael is not talking so people think what they want. More rumours and more rumours go on.”
Laudrup said he was sacked due to “breach of contract” and, when asked if he could understand why added: “I don’t know if I have to use ‘silly’, other words or ‘incredible’. I can’t go into details.”
However, despite ongoing legal proceedings, Laudrup explained at some length the circumstances that led to his departure from the Liberty Stadium.
He said that as early as mid-January club officials had raised questions regarding his coaching structure before sending him another message after the defeat by West Ham.
Laudrup met with Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins to discuss the situation and thought an agreement had been reached, only for matters to go downhill rapidly.
“We ended up saying we have to stay together, we shook hands and he says ‘thank you very much because you want to help the club’,” Laudrup said.
“Later that afternoon, while I’m talking on the phone, I receive a mail where it says that due to breach of contract, with immediate effect, my deal is terminated.
“It was just a few hours after we shook hands and, of course, I’m very, very confused.
“I called and I said ‘what is going on?’ after we shook hands and everything, but he said ‘yeah, after thinking’ - it was a little difficult to hear what was said.”
“I said ‘by the way, what does breach mean?’ and he couldn’t explain that. He didn’t really know,” added Laudrup, who was replaced by former Swansea player Garry Monk.
