Former Brazil coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said on Friday he is close to reaching an agreement to manage 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa, a deal that would mark his return to the continent after nearly 40 years.
Parreira, who resigned from Brazil last week, met with officials from the South African Football Association (Safa) in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
”We gave a good step to finish a contract,” Parreira told the Associated Press after the meeting. ”You cannot finalise anything in one day. We agreed about financial stuff and staff, but it’s a huge process to build a team.”
Parreira’s first position as head of a national team was in Africa, where he coached Ghana in 1967 and 1968. Ghana were runners-up in the African Cup of Nations under his command in 1968.
South Africa, the 1996 African Cup champions, qualified for the 1998 and 2002 World Cups but finished third in their qualifying group for 2006, five points behind qualifiers Ghana.
They has been looking for a full-time replacement since firing Romanian Ted Dumitru on February 1, a day after Bafana Bafana lost their third straight game and were eliminated in the first round of the African Cup finals in Egypt.
Parreira said he planned to travel to South Africa in about two weeks to finalise details on the contract.
When asked how close he was to reaching an agreement, Parreira said: ”We are on the way.”
The coach declined to give any other details. He had previously said that Safa officials contacted him for talks even before the World Cup in Germany.
The 63-year-old Parreira resigned from Brazil after the team’s dismal World Cup campaign.
The Brazilian soccer confederation replaced Parreira with Dunga, a former World Cup champion with no coaching experience. — Sapa-AP