Botswana are to move quickly to offer their youthful Serbian coach Vesselin Jelusic an extended contract after hints he might be moving south of the border to one of the South African premier league clubs.
Jelusic has made a quick reputation for himself since taking over as coach of the Zebras last year, guiding the under achieving side into the quarter-final of the Cosafa Castle Cup for a second successive year plus qualifying the team for the group phase of the 2006 World Cup qualifiers, which start next month.
Botswana Football Association president David Fani has told local radio a new deal is to be offered to Jelusic, a former national coach in Angola and who also previously worked at AS Aviacao and InterClube in Luanda.
His contract expires in September, just after Botswana have got their 2006 World Cup qualifying campaign underway. They start with a tough away game at African champions Tunisia next month.
Fani told listeners Jelusic was already in talks over his new package. He also slammed local newspapers claiming they were writing fiction rather than fact around the coach’s future.
Jelusic was linked by several reports with the South African club Jomo Cosmos, although this has since been denied by Cosmos owner Jomo Sono. “It is simply not true that Jelusic is leaving and the story has hurt him,” Fani said.
