Gordon Igesund, coach of South Africa football team Bafana Bafana, was fired from his post after he "failed to fulfil two of his mandates - reaching the semi-finals of the 2013 CAF Africa Cup of Nations and qualifying for the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil", South Africa Football Association (SAFA) announced.
According to Fifa.com, Igesund was barely clinging on to his position amid rising public and media criticism over his raft of failures in the past games. When South Africa hosted the 2013 Cup of Nations, Bafana Bafana won only one of four games, eventually losing to Mali in the quarterly finals. The year 2014 would have been his chance to redeem the team, but the team was beaten by Nigeria and, worse, was eliminated as early as the first round. In March, the team was hammered by Brazil in a depressing 5-0 score in Soweto.
The decision on Igesund's future was made public through an announcement by SAFA president Danny Jordaan at a press conference, who said that they will not be renewing his contract which is set to expire in August, writes Soccer Laduma. The coach has actually brought a pretty good record for Bafana. For the World Cup qualifiers, for one, the team had four wins, three draws and one loss. Unfortunately, this number is not enough.
"He gave us a presentation for an hour and a half. But at the end of the day, the members decided he would not be staying with the national team," said Jordaan.
Jordaan and his task team will not immediately reveal a replacement but they will be speaking to as many potential candidates as they can during the search, reports Sport Live. It is believed that among those in the short list are ex-Bafana coach Carlos Quieroz, current coach for Nigeria Stephen Keshi and Ruud Krol. Krol is currently unemployed after being fired from Esperance of Tunisia in April.