Claudio Ranieri rejects Italy offer: 'I stay at Roma'

Carlo Garganese

• Updated: 10 Jun 2025 09:12 BST
• 3 min read

News

Claudio Ranieri has rejected the chance to become the new head coach of the Italy national team.

The Azzurri sacked Luciano Spalletti at the weekend following the disastrous 3-0 defeat in Norway on Friday that has put Italy at risk of missing a third straight World Cup.

Spalletti stayed on to coach Italy for the last time on Monday - a 2-0 home win over Moldova - but now departs after a miserable 22 months in charge of his country.

Italian president Gabriele Gravina immediately earmarked Ranieri as his first choice to replace Spalletti, and negotiations have been ongoing over the past 48 hours.

Ranieri accepts Italy role

According to a number of sources, including Nicolo Schira, Ranieri seemed likely to accept the offer to coach Italy until the World Cup next year.

The FIGC had given their blessing for Ranieri to undertake a duel role of being a senior advisor at Roma, in addition to coaching Italy.

However, after a period of reflection, Ranieri has decided to keep his word to Roma and give his job there his full attention.

“It’s a great honor for me to receive that proposal but I decided to continue with my role at AS Roma as part of the management”, Ranieri said.

Ranieri moved upstairs at Roma at the end of this past season after being caretaker at his childhood club.

Now 73, Ranieri came out of retirement at the end of last year to take over Roma whilst they were in a crisis.

Ranieri has enjoyed an illustrious career spanning four decades, most famously winning the Premier League with minnows Leicester City in 2016.

Italy will now look elsewhere for a replacement for Luciano Spalletti.

Spalletti sacked

Spalletti was appointed as Italy manager in August 2023 following the resignation of Euro 2020-winning manager Roberto Mancini.

There were high hopes for Spalletti as he was coming off the back to leading Napoli to a first Scudetto in 33 years in the 2022-23 season.

But he endured a disappointing spell in charge of Italy. He narrowly avoided having to go through a playoff for Euro 2024 when Ukraine were controversially denied a penalty in the final matchday of qualifying.

And at the Euros itself, Italy produced a disastrous performance as they were eliminated in the last 16 by Switzerland 2-0.

The results and performances have not improved since, despite a slighly upturn in September and October, and Italy's form has been very poor of late.

A the time of his sacking, they had conceded 11 goals in their previous four games, keeping only three clean sheets in Spalletti's 24 games in charge, and this culminated in the 3-0 loss to Norway that proved to be the final straw.

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