Tick tock tick tock, we should be officially set in the coming days on the identity of the new coach of the French women’s football team, four months before the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Jocelyn Gourvennec, former coach of Bordeaux and Losc, who appeared on the short list approached to succeed Corinne Deacon, declined this position as coach of the Blues on Saturday.
This information coming from a source close to the file gives the field free to Hervé Renard. “We shared a number of thoughts and we had given ourselves a 72-hour deadline, had previously indicated Jocelyn Gourvennec, interviewed by the newspaper South West. But coach, it’s not the same job and I want to continue to train on a daily basis, in the club.
The final decision for Tuesday or Wednesday?
Before this decision, the Breton had been auditioned on Wednesday by the special commission set up to choose the new coach, in which the president of Olympique Lyonnais Jean-Michel Aulas appears in particular. With this withdrawal, the current coach of Saudi Arabia Hervé Renard acts as the big favorite. He will nevertheless have to free himself from his contract with the Saudi Federation, which lasts until 2027, with a salary much higher than that granted to Corinne Deacon, landed on March 9 during a Comex of the FFF. Note that PSG coach Gérard Prêcheur, who denounced Friday “betrayals and low blows”, and the duo Sonia Bompastor-Camille Abily, extended Friday until 2025 by OL, are now out of the race.
The decision has not yet been taken and “important details remain to be settled”, said another source with knowledge of the file on Friday. The French Football Federation hopes to finalize its choice “Tuesday or Wednesday”. She has a limited time to find a successor to Corinne Deacon, who had been in office since 2017. Les Bleues are indeed playing their next match in three weeks, on April 7 against Colombia, in a friendly in Clermont. This is one of the last deadlines before the World Cup which will begin on July 20.