Rodgers rejects Swans and weighs up Middle East offer

BRENDAN RODGERS is understood to have told Swansea City that he is not interested in returning to the Premier League club as their new manager following the sacking of Garry Monk.

Rodgers is considering a highly lucrative contract – believed to be as much as £8m a year – with an unnamed, cash-rich club in the Middle East. The offer is believed to be genuine with the former Liverpool manager having been offered a two-year deal.

The Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins has not given up on persuading Rodgers (pictured), who took the club into the Premier League and remains highly regarded, to change his mind. But sources close to Rodgers were dismissing the possibility last night indicating that he would remain not interested.

Also not interested is the former Everton and Manchester United manager David Moyes, who was recently sacked by the Real Sociedad and who wants to return to the Premier League. However, Moyes has let it be known that he will choose his next club carefully, and while he has not been approached by Swansea it is not a club that he would want to go to at the present time. There are suggestions that Swansea might turn to an overseas manager with the former Inter Milan coach Walter Mazzarri – understood to be learning English and interested in a Premier League move – or a short-term appointment until the end of the season.

Jenkins and his board are also considering the former Sunderland manager Gus Poyet, who is working for the Greek club AEK Athens.

Swansea are also debating whether to continue with their approach – which they only deviated from with the appointment of Michael Laudrup – of hiring young, promising coaches who can develop the team’s style of play.