LONDON, England -- Italy's World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi is the latest big name to reject the chance of taking over at Premier League strugglers Birmingham City following Steve Bruce's proposed move to Wigan Athletic.
Lippi has received offers from a number of clubs since leading Italy to World Cup triumph.
The club's co-owner David Sullivan confirmed on Wednesday that they had spoken with Lippi who had a strong record in club football before leading Italy to World Cup triumph in 2006.
Sullivan told the Birmingham Mail: "We made an approach and Lippi turned it down. This is not a stunt. It's genuine.
"He is available at the moment and we are looking at bringing in a manager of his stature and caliber."
Birmingham made an earlier unsuccessful approach to former Tottenham boss Martin Jol, but Sullivan is undaunted.
"Of course, you get knock-backs. That's football. But if you do not try you will never know. It was the same with Martin Jol. It made sense for us to approach him.
"We are juggling other balls in the air at the moment and we will see which ones land. I want to stress to our supporters that we are working very, very hard to bring in the right man."
Sullivan is determined to bring in a new manager quickly with Bruce's number two Eric Black acting as caretaker for Saturday's game with Portsmouth.
Bruce's appointed at Wigan was put on hold on Wednesday because of a problem reportedly regarding a severance payment between the 46-year-old and his former club.
Wigan chief executive Brenda Spencer confirmed: "Unfortunately an issue has arisen between Birmingham and Steve, and until that is resolved we can't announce him as our manager.
"We have agreed compensation, but this issue is nothing to do with Wigan. It's between Steve and Birmingham.
"Our chairman is desperate we have a manager in place, and he is hopeful something will happen in the next 24 hours. We just have to sit tight, hold fire and hope that it will be resolved, that Steve can sort it out.
"Steve is our number one, and hopefully he will be appointed. But the issue first has to be resolved between Birmingham and Steve.
"It's something we have been working on all morning to resolve, and we've been in contact with Birmingham, but we can't really do anything.
"It's frustrating, especially as it happened late yesterday. Dave (Whelan) is very upset because we were hoping to have Steve sign his contract and appoint him today."
If the appointment does eventually go through, Bruce will sign a three-year deal, with Wigan paying around $6 million compensation. E-mail to a friend 
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