Iain Moody is set to resign as Crystal Palace sporting director in the wake of allegations about racist, sexist and homophobic texts shared with his former colleague, Malky Mackay.
The claims have already ended Mackay’s chances of becoming Palace’s new boss.
The pair were sacked by Cardiff City last season and the Welsh club sent a dossier to the Football Association alleging misconduct.
Mackay, 42, had been the favourite to take over at Selhurst Park.
It would have been Mackay’s first managerial role since his dismissal in December. Moody, Mackay’s head of recruitment at Cardiff, was sacked two months prior to that and later joined the Palace staff under Tony Pulis.
After Pulis left Palace last week, Mackay had been widely expected to rejoin Moody in south London.
The FA has confirmed it received a detailed account of issues relating to the pair from their time at Cardiff and said it was “currently investigating this matter”.
Cardiff have also given Palace and Moody notice they intend to serve legal action against them for their involvement in last season’s so-called ‘spygate’ incident.[eap_ad_2]
The Eagles beat Cardiff 3-0 in April only for the Welsh side to complain that their starting line-up had been leaked to their London rivals. Palace and Moody denied any wrongdoing.
But it is understood that the Palace hierarchy were unaware of Cardiff’s latest allegations about Moody and their complaint to the FA until Wednesday.
Palace were also thought to be unaware of the allegations about Mackay when the Scot was interviewed for the vacant manager’s position on Sunday.
It is understood Mackay did not perform as well as expected in the interview but remained a strong candidate for the role until Palace learned full details of the allegations on Wednesday and immediately dropped their interest.
Palace were led to believe that the bitter dispute between Cardiff and Mackay and Moody had been settled when the pair apologised to Bluebirds owner Vincent Tan in May and dropped their claims for compensation over their sackings in late 2013.
Members of the Palace hierarchy thought this dispute was purely over alleged financial irregularities during Mackay and Moody’s time at Cardiff and while they had heard rumours that there were more allegations, they had not been presented with any evidence.
It has since emerged that some of these allegations relate to text messages of a racist, sexist and homophobic nature.
Meanwhile, Palace’s search for a new manager is now likely to extend into next week.
Keith Millen will remain in temporary charge for Saturday’s visit of West Ham, assisted by first-team coach Ben Garner and coach Gerry Francis.
Former Tottenham manager Tim Sherwood is one of the candidates to be appointed to the position on a permanent basis. (BBC Sport)[eap_ad_3]