Igesund Sacked!

The manager of the South Africa national football team, Gordon Igesund, has been sacked from his post. The Association in South Africa made that announcement yesterday evening.

Igesund was given the charge of the South African team a couple of years back i.e. in June 2012. He was expected to guide the team to the Round of 4 in the 2013 Africa Cup and also to the 2014 World Cup finals, but, he couldn’t do either of that.

South Africa got beaten by Mali in the penalty shootouts in the quarter final round in the Africa Cup and they also failed to qualify for the third round of the CAF World Cup qualification after having secured only 11 points in their 6 matches in the second round.

So, considering all these things, people were already expecting that the South African association would not give a contract extension to Igesund and the same happened.
The chairman of the association, Mr. Danny Jordaan, had a meeting with Igesund in which he made the 57-year Old aware that he was going to be terminated from his position.

In the press conference in which Igesund’s sacking was announced, Jordaan also said that the hunt for the new manager would start pretty soon.

The chairman said, “We are going to look for a new man for the post pretty soon.”

The two men who are understood to be the strongest contenders to replace Igesund are Stephen Keshi (Nigeria) and Carlos Queiroz (Portugal). They are currently in charge of the national teams of Nigeria and Iran respectively and would be in Brazil in about 10 days’ time for the FIFA World Cup.

Keshi is a hugely respected manager in the African continent and many experts reckon that the chances of him grabbing the South Africa job are very high.