PARIS: André Villas-Boas has quit as coach Marseille, three days after angry fans caused thousands of euro of damage by storming the club’s training centre.

Marseille are ninth in the French league after their weekend match against Rennes was postponed after the turmoil.

Portuguese coach Villas-Boas said the reason for his resignation was disagreement over the board’s strategy for the club. It is understood he had opposed the loan signing of French midfielder Olivier Ntcham from Celtic.

Villas-Boas had offered to stay for Wednesday’s match against Lens but the club subsequently suspended him and disciplinary procedures.

He said: “I have submitted my resignation because I do not agree with the sports policy. Ntcham is a player who wasn’t on my list and I wasn’t going for him. It’s not a decision I’d taken. I only heard about it in the press. For the last two or three years the club have got it wrong with this aspect of transfers.

“I  don’t want anything from Marseille. I don’t want money.”

Villas-Boas, 43, took over Marseille in 2019 after spells with Academica Coimbra, Porto, Chelsea, Tottenham, Zenit St Petersburg and SiPG Shanghai.

On Saturday some 300 protesters besieged the training centre, threw smoke bombs smoke and firecrackers before several dozen breached the security fences. Some 25 arrests were made.

The attack on the training centre, causing €100,000-plus damage, was the climax of several weeks of increasingly fraught protests before and during Marseille’s home matches.

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