FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - UEFA Women's Nations League - Group B - France v Austria - Roazhon Park, Rennes, France - December 1, 2023 France coach Herve Renard REUTERS/Stephane Mahe/File Photo
(Reuters) - A bid by Africa Cup of Nations hosts Ivory Coast to get former coach Herve Renard back on their bench to take charge of the rest of their campaign at the tournament has been turned down, French media reports said on Friday.
Renard is the coach of the French women’s team and permission had been sought of the French football federation by the Ivorians to "loan" the 55-year-coach for the tournament.
Frenchman Renard is a two-time Cup of Nations winner, coaching outsiders Zambia to the title in 2012 when they edged the Ivorians on post-match penalties in the final, and the Ivory Coast in 2015 when they beat Ghana in the decider.
He is the only coach to win the African championship with two different countries and had been in Abidjan watching the early stages of this year’s tournament as a guest of the Ivorian government.
Ivory Coast, who many had expected to be a force at the tournament, limped into the last-16 as one of four best third-placed finishers despite a humiliating 4-0 loss to tiny Equatorial Guinea in the heaviest defeat suffered by a host nation in the tournament's history.
They fired coach Jean-Louis Gasset, a former France assistant under Laurent Blanc, and put ex-international Emerse Fae in charge in the interim but were hoping Renard would ride to their rescue.
According to L'Equipe, the Ivorian federation had approach Renard and while he was "not insensitive to this call from the Ivorians" he needed the agreement of the French federation, who refused.
Neither the Ivorian nor French federation made any public statement on the matter.
Ivory Coast met holders Senegal in the last-16 at Yamoussoukro on Monday.
(Reporting by Mark Gleeson; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
