New Amavubi coach to be unveiled in two weeks

RWANDA Football Federation will unveil the next Amavubi Stars coach in a fortnight. The federation president Vincent Degaule Nzamwita has said. “We are officially announcing a vacancy for the national team head coach today (Monday) which will expire in a weeks’ time,” Nzamwita told Times Sport yesterday. Nzamwita said a committee has been set up to work closely with the Ministry of Sports and Culture to assess the shortlisted coaches before naming the best candidate for the job. According to Ferwafa, over 20 international coaches have expressed their desire to replace the incumbent coach Eric Nshimiyimana. The next Amavubi head coach who will be picked must possess a coaching license A (Uefa, Caf, Concacaf, Conmebol, AFL, OFC) and should have a three-year minimum experience as a national team coach. The deadline for receiving applications is April 30, according to Ferwafa. The former Rwandan international, Nshimiyimana has been in charge of Amavubi Stars since March 2013 following the sacking of Serbian Milutin Sredojovic. Nshimiyimana’s contract expires at the end of this month and he hopes to be in the race for the job despite Amavubi’s run of unimpressive results in the past 12 months. Some of the shortlisted coaches include former Tanzania head coach Danish Kim Poulsen, Serbian Ratomir Dujkovic, Belgian Luc Eymael, French Didier Gomes da Rosa, Croatian Branko Tucak, Dutch Rene Feller, German Hans Michael Weiss and former Malawi, Ethiopia and Namibia coach Tom Saintfiet. Tough challenge Whoever replaces Nshimiyimana will have a tough job of ensuring that Rwanda qualifies for the 2015 Africa Nations Cup finals to be held in Morocco as well as helping Rwanda win 2016 Chan tournament which will be held in Kigali. Rwanda will begin their quest against Libya in the African Nations Cup qualifiers for the 2015 championships. Amavubi will play the first leg match away in Tripoli from May 16-18 before hosting the 2013 Chan title holders in Kigali in the return leg set for May 30 to June 1. Should Amavubi win, they will face the winner between Namibia and Congo in the second round on a home and away knock out basis. The games will be played between July 18th – 20th (First leg) and August 1st – 3rd (second leg). The Winner between Namibia/Congo and Rwanda/Libya will then join Group A which comprises of defending champions Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan. The group matches will be played from 5-6 September and 10th September; 10-11 October and 15th October; 14-15 November and 19th November. The first and second from the seven groups will automatically qualify for the finals in Morocco joined by the third best in all groups and hosts Morocco to make the 16 teams. Morocco will complete the cast as hosts. Rwanda last appeared at the Nations Cup finals in 2004 in Tunisia.