{"id":93136,"date":"2025-09-08T08:15:44","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T08:15:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=93136"},"modified":"2025-09-08T08:15:44","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T08:15:44","slug":"i-was-close-to-getting-the-black-stars-job-mali-coach-tom-saintfiet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=93136","title":{"rendered":"I was close to getting the Black Stars job \u2013 Mali coach Tom Saintfiet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tom Saintfiet has revealed how close he was to being appointed as head coach of the Black Stars, but the Ghana FA decided to go for another coach.<\/p>\n

Saintfiet confirmed holding discussions with the country\u2019s football governing body for \u201cfour hours\u201d regarding the then-vacant job following the dismissal of Chris Hughton after a winless 2023 Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s true that at that moment, after AFCON, around AFCON, there were talks\u2026 but I had a feeling I was close to the Black Stars job,\u201d Saintfiet said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spoke about four hours, I think in total, with the Ghana Federation, with Kurt [Okraku] and Mark [Addo, the President and Vice President]\u2026 but in the end they decided to go for another coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Otto Addo was hired by the FA in March 2024 for his second stint as Black Stars gaffer.<\/p>\n

Saintfiet, who led Gambia to their first-ever last eight in the 2021 AFCON, was appointed as Mali head coach in August 2024 and is unbeaten in nine competitive matches, including six wins.<\/p>\n

The two coaches collide in Matchday Eight of the World Cup qualifiers on Monday, September 8.<\/p>\n

Ghana sit at the summit of Group I with 16 points, four ahead ahead of fourth-placed Mali.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"ITom Saintfiet has revealed how close he was to being appointed as head coach of the Black Stars, but the Ghana FA decided to go for another coach.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7402,807,137,536,2134,3326,5871,10,9,11,8129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2026-world-cup-qualifiers","category-black-stars","category-football","category-ghana","category-haruna-mubarak","category-hp-sports-4","category-otto-addo","category-politics","category-popular","category-sports","category-tom-saintfiet"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}