Africa Cup of Nations hosts, Ivory Coast have sacked coach Jean-Louis Gasset.
Gasset’s sacking is coming midway into the tournament, after the hosts suffered an embarrassing 4-0 defeat in the hands of Equatorial Guinea on Monday.
“The contracts of coach Jean-Louis Gasset and his assistant Ghislain Printant are terminated due to insufficient results,” the country’s football federation said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The Ivorian Football Federation expresses its regrets at the performance of the Elephants during the group stage,” the FIF statement added.
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The two-time AFCON champions need results to go in their favour in Wednesday’s final group matches to reach the second round as one of the four best third-placed teams.
Ivory Coast have only failed to get out of the group phase once in the previous nine editions of the tournament, in 2017.
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If Ivory Coast do squeeze into the last 16, Emerse Fae, one of Gasset’s assistants, will take over as interim boss until the end of the tournament.
Former Nantes and Nice midfielder Fae played alongside Didier Drogba in the Ivorian team that lost the 2006 AFCON final to Egypt.
Frenchman Gasset had been in charge since May 2022 but paid the price for back-to-back group defeats by Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria following an opening 2-0 win over minnows Guinea-Bissau.
