During an interview, Hervé Renard explained the reasons which would have pushed him to join Ivory Coast during the CAN.
Coach of theFrench women’s team since March 2023, Hervé Renard had so far been enjoying a peaceful and promising adventure with his new team despite the disappointment of being eliminated in the quarter-finals of the World Cup last summer. But this week has been totally crazy and has sparked some controversy. The French coach was in fact contacted by the Ivory Coast to take over from Jean-Louis Gasset until the end of CAN 2023.
“I had no right to say no”
A proposal that Renard was ready to accept, he who has already won this competition twice (with Zambia in 2012 and Ivory Coast in 2015), but the 55-year-old coach was faced with refusal from the French Federation of football and its president Philippe Diallo. In an interview given to The Team published this Friday, he explains why it seemed impossible for him to say no. “When you have the President of the Federation, the Prime Minister of the country asking you for it, I had no right to say no. Impossible. First of all, I would never have spoken if Jean-Louis had been in office, that’s the first thing. And from the start, I said to the president of the Federation: ‘I’m willing, but there’s no question of me leaving the Blues, so you ask my leaders if they accept that I can do both.’ It was non-negotiable”he explained first.
Despite this disappointment, the former LOSC coach is taking this decision philosophically and intends to prepare for the Olympic Games this summer. “I don’t see how it would have been incompatible to do both. Nevermind. It was destiny. And a magnificent challenge awaits us with the Olympics. We will feast “he continued.
