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Soccer-West Ham Appoint Former Spain Manager Lopetegui as Head Coach

Former Spain national coach Julen Lopetegui. (AFP)
Former Spain national coach Julen Lopetegui. (AFP)
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Soccer-West Ham Appoint Former Spain Manager Lopetegui as Head Coach

Former Spain national coach Julen Lopetegui. (AFP)
Former Spain national coach Julen Lopetegui. (AFP)

West Ham United have appointed former Spain and Real Madrid manager Julen Lopetegui as their new head coach, the Premier League club said on Thursday.

Lopetegui, who previously coached Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League and will take charge of West Ham on July 1, replaces David Moyes, who left the London club this month.

West Ham finished ninth in the standings with 52 points and missed out on qualification for European football next season.

"My ambition as a coach is always to be better and better, to achieve more and bigger aims and to encourage and improve the players, the team, and to compete because football is about this – to compete," Lopetegui, 57, said in a statement, Reuters reported.

"I am where I want to be. I am here because I want to be here and for us it was a fantastic day when we closed our agreement here because our commitment is 100 per cent to be here."

Lopetegui, who was at Barcelona and Real Madrid as a player but featured mostly for Logrones and Rayo Vallecano, began coaching in Spain's youth set-up before spells at Vallecano in the Spanish second tier and Portuguese club Porto.

His most successful stint in club management came at Sevilla, where he spent three years in charge, leading the LaLiga outfit to the Europa League title in 2020.

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Workers Take Down Olympic Rings from Eiffel Tower – for Now

Tourists sit on the Olympic rings displayed in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, on September 27, 2024. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)
Tourists sit on the Olympic rings displayed in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, on September 27, 2024. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)
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Workers Take Down Olympic Rings from Eiffel Tower – for Now

Tourists sit on the Olympic rings displayed in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, on September 27, 2024. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)
Tourists sit on the Olympic rings displayed in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, on September 27, 2024. (Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP)

Workers removed the Olympics logo from the Eiffel Tower in the early hours of Friday, returning the beloved monument to its familiar form -- but perhaps only temporarily.

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has promised to build new Olympic rings and return them to the landmark as a tribute to the hugely successful Olympic Games held in the capital during July and August.

The proposal has polarized opinion in the French capital and has been criticized by descendants of the tower's designer Gustave Eiffel, as well as conservation groups.

After initially suggesting the new rings should be permanent, Hidalgo has proposed they remain on the city's world-renowned symbol until the next Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

Workers operating multiple large cranes removed the 30-tonne steel rings from between the first and second floors of the tower during the early hours of Friday morning.

They were first installed just under four months ago, on June 7, and will now be melted down and recycled.

The new rings, which the International Olympic Committee is expected to pay for, would be lighter versions of the originals and less prominent, according to a deputy Paris mayor, Pierre Rabadan.

"In my opinion, it would be better to put them somewhere else because it's a Parisian monument and it's not right that it becomes an advertising medium for an event that is now over," Hugo Staub, a French tourist at the tower on Friday, told AFP.

Culture Minister Rachida Dati, a longtime critic and opponent of Hidalgo, has also cast doubt over the idea, saying the mayor's proposal would need to respect procedures protecting historic buildings.

But others felt regret at losing a visual reminder of an enchanted period in Paris and expressed support for the idea of replacements.

"They were a bit large so it's better to put small ones that can remain for a few years," said Gabriel, a French volunteer at the Games, who was at the foot of the tower on Friday. "It would be symbolic and a great souvenir."