Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi, hope of coaching the Elephants of Cote d’ Ivoire will not materialize for now at the country has shortlisted five coaches out of the 59 that applied for the job.
Hervé Renard, who guided the team to win the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations resigned to take up a club coaching job in France.
Keshi is believed to have applied for the job, has however denied it. But the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is investigating if the coach truly applied for the job. Keshi had appeared before the NFF disciplinary committee over the issue.
Following the examination of 59 applications, the FIF-appointed committee has selected Portuguese coach Paulo Duarte, Polish manager Henryk Kasperczak and the French trio of Patrice Neveu, Frédéric Antonetti and Michel Dussuyer.
The list will be prune down to three before a final decision will be taken.
Officials say the main criteria would be experience of African football and fluency in French, to be able to communicate easily with not only the team’s foreign-based players but also the home-based.
Henryk Kasperczak, who coached the Elephants between 1993 and 1994, made the five-man list. The 68-year-old Polish manager has also worked with the national teams of Tunisia, Mali and Senegal.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”70560″]
Former Guinea, DR Congo and Mauritania coach, Patrice Neveu, as well as Michel Dussuyer, who led the Syli National of Guinea to the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, are among the top five.
Portuguese manager, Paulo Duarte, who formerly handled Burkina Faso and Gabon, is also vying for the job, while former French clubs Rennes and Nice coach Frederic Antonetti is the only candidate who has not previously worked in Africa.
The African champion is currently without a head coach ahead of the second match day of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers.
(Daily independent)