Maradona fired as Argentine coach

Diego Maradona was removed as coach of Argentina's national team, ending an erratic 21-month stint that mirrored his own long history of unpredictable behaviour and culminated in a humiliating exit in the World Cup quarterfinals.

The Argentine Football Association, following a unanimous vote of its executive committee, said that his contract would not be renewed after Maradona had said he would only accept the AFA's offer of a new four-year deal through to the 2014 World Cup if his entire staff also remained.

That was unacceptable to Argentine Football Association president Julio Grondona. He had asked for several assistants to be replaced. One of them is Maradona's close friend, Alejandro Mancuso.

The federation's executive committee sided with Grondona, a little more than three weeks after Argentina was eliminated in the World Cup in South Africa with a 4-0 loss to Germany.

AFA spokesman Ernesto Cherquis Bialo called the decision "very painful for the AFA" but said there was no way to solve the impasse.

"The president said that there was a significant difference between what AFA wanted to achieve and Maradona's aspirations for the future," Cherquis Bialo said. "There was a wide gap, and it was impossible to narrow it."

The AFA said youth team manager Sergio Batista would be the interim coach for the friendly against Ireland on August 11 in Dublin.