NEW Ferwafa president Célestin Ntagungira has rubbished claims that Milutin Micho Sredojevic has signed a deal to coach Amavubi.

Micho has been in the country since last week and was one of the spectators for Sunday’s hotly contested Primus league match between APR and Rayon Sport, raising further speculation that a deal had been concluded.

The former SC Villa and St. George coach is one of the five shortlisted candidates for the position which has been vacant since September when Sellas Tetteh decided to quit after a run of poor results that included a humiliating 5-0 home defeat against Ivory Coast.

However, Ntagungira insists that the selection process is far from done.

"The process of selecting the next Amavubi coach will be done in a professional way. What would be the point of short-listing potential candidates when an agreement has already been reached?” he wondered before adding, "Those are just baseless rumours.”

Other candidates for the job are; Nigeria’s Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, Patrice Neveu of France and the Serbian duo of Ratomir Djukovic and Branko Smiljanic.

Of the five, Micho appears to be the front-runner when it comes to coaching on the continent after working with SC Villa of Uganda, Ethiopia’s St.George, Yanga of Tanzania and Sudan’s Al Hilal.

It has also been revealed that his ‘behind-the-scene’ activities played a huge part in Amavubi’s famous 1-0 away victory over the Uganda Cranes which ultimately qualified Rwanda to their maiden Nations Cup in 2004.

Former Nigeria captain Keshi has taken charge of Togo on two occasions; Neveu had spells with DRC and Guinea while Smiljanic’s highlight was leading Libyan side Al Ittihad to the semi-final of the Champions League in 2007.

Dujkovic meanwhile qualified Rwanda to the 2004 Africa Nations Cup and Ghana to the 2006 Fifa World Cup in Germany.

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