By Rédaction Africa Links 24 with Guardian Nigeria
Published on 2024-01-24 15:45:10
Ivory Coast, the hosts of the Africa Cup of Nations, have made the decision to dismiss coach Jean-Louis Gasset in the middle of the tournament, as announced by the country’s football federation (FIF) on Wednesday.
In a statement, the FIF cited “insufficient results” as the reason for terminating the contracts of both Gasset and his assistant, Ghislain Printant. This decision followed Ivory Coast’s humiliating 4-0 loss to Equatorial Guinea in their last Group A game on Monday.
The team, which has won the tournament twice in the past, must now rely on favorable results in the final group matches on Wednesday in order to qualify for the knockout phase as one of the top four third-placed teams. In the nine previous editions of the tournament, Ivory Coast has only failed to advance past the group phase once, which was in 2017.
Should Ivory Coast manage to advance to the last 16, Emerse Fae, one of Gasset’s assistants, will take over as interim coach for the remainder of the tournament. Gasset, a Frenchman who had been in charge since May 2022, was let go due to consecutive defeats by Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria, following an initial 2-0 victory over Guinea-Bissau.
There are still several potential scenarios in Groups E and F that could see Ivory Coast progress to the next round. A win for World Cup semi-finalists Morocco in their final Group F match against Zambia would secure Ivory Coast’s place in the knockout stage.
After Monday’s game, Gasset had expressed his intention to meet with FIF president Yacine Idriss Diallo to discuss his future. He described the situation as being close to a “nightmare” and acknowledged that there was little he could say or do in such a scenario. The 4-0 loss to Equatorial Guinea marked the country’s most significant defeat in a home match.
Gasset, whose coaching career had been primarily in France with teams like Montpellier, Bordeaux, and Saint-Etienne, took on his first international coaching role with Ivory Coast.
Read the original article on The Guardian
