French side Nantes has appointed former Chelsea and Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri as its new manager.
The Ligue 1 side received special
dispensation from the French league to appoint the Italian, as he reached the manager’s age limit of 65 last year.
Ranieri guided the Foxes to the Premier League title in 2016 when the club defied odds of up to 5,000-1.
But he was sacked in February with the club battling relegation after a run of five league
losses in a row.
Ranieri succeeds Sergio Conceicao after the former Portugal winger left Nantes in order to take over at Porto.
Conceicao, 42, took charge of the Ligue 1 side in December 2016 and immediately oversaw four straight wins in the league as
they finished seventh in France’s top tier.
Ranieri has experience of working in France, overseeing Monaco’s promotion to Ligue 1
in 2012-13 and then guiding them to second place behind Paris St-Germain the following season before being released.
Nantes will be Ranieri’s 17th job in a managerial career that has spanned 31 years and has included all the major Italian
clubs except AC Milan.
Atletico Madrid, Chelsea and Valencia twice are the other clubs he has managed outside
Italy during that time.
His league win with Leicester remains his only top-flight title.
Nantes have won the French title eight times but have not done so since 2001.
