French giants Marseille have confirmed that Spanish head coach Marcelino has now left his post with the club embroiled in turmoil.

Despite a good start in Ligue 1, where they currently sit third in the table after five matches, Marseille are at loggerheads with their own fans after the club were knocked out of the Champions League qualifying stages by Panathinaikos and failed to keep star assets Dimitri Payet and Alexis Sanchez this season.

Marcelino steps down at Marseille

58-year-old Marcelino only took over the club in June but in a brief statement by the club today, Marseille confirmed the club had accepted the Spaniard’s decision to resign in the middle of a tricky set of fixtures which starts with a trip to Amsterdam to take on Ajax in the Europa League tomorrow evening.

The club confirmed on their official website today, “Olympique de Marseille considers that the events of September 18 do not allow Marcelino and his technical staff to exercise in good conditions the function for which they were hired”.

The events referred to by the club include a set of death threats allegedly sent to OM president Pablo Longoria and it is believed that Marcelino offered his resignation in solidarity with the man who hired him earlier this summer. Longoria is also expected to leave the club with immediate effect.

“As a result of this deplorable situation, Marcelino and his staff will not continue their mission at Olympique de Marseille.

“The entire club is extremely disappointed to have to face the departure of a coach and technical staff, who only arrived in Marseille on June 23 and fully committed to the club, for non-sporting reasons,” an angry statement concluded.