Nice have appointed Francesco Farioli as their new head coach, with the 34-year-old succeeding interim boss Didier Digard. 

Digard oversaw a significant upturn in the Eagles' fortunes in the immediate aftermath of replacing Lucien Favre in the hotseat in January, as the French Riviera outfit thrashed Montpellier in his opening game in charge before securing hugely impressive wins at Lens, Marseille and Monaco.

However, Nice only secured 17 points in their final 13 Ligue 1 matches in 2022/23 and were disappointingly knocked out of the Europa Conference League at the quarter-final stage by Basel, leading the club's hierarchy to decide on a change. 

After being named Digard's replacement, Farioli said: "Being the new OGC Nice manager is an immense honour. I've known about and followed the club's development for years. 

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"The infrastructure is there and the people in place are competent and determined. Everything is geared towards us achieving great things together. To do so, we'll need hard work and humility."

Nice finished a disappointing ninth last term - having come fifth in the previous three campaigns - and are at risk of losing influential midfielder Khephren Thuram, with Liverpool said to be keenly interested. 

Farioli started his coaching career aged just 20 and was predominantly a goalkeeping coach for more than 10 years, working under Roberto De Zerbi before following the current Brighton boss to Sassuolo. 

From there, the Italian became Alanyaspor's assistant manager, before taking the leap into the No 1 spot at Fatih Karagumruk, and after acquitting himself well in a nine-month spell there, moving back to Alanyaspor to take the manager's job, where he helped guide the club to an impressive fifth place in the 2021/22 campaign before being sacked in February.