Tanzania Sack Coach Burundian Coach Etienne Ndayiragije

Tanzania have sacked Burundian coach Etienne Ndayiragije after a disappointing performance at the 2020 African Nations Championship.

The Taifa Stars won just one of their three matches at the tournament in Cameroon, which led to calls from football stakeholders in the East African country, for the coach to be released from his contract.

They got their wish on Thursday as the Tanzania Football Federation announced it had terminated the deal which Ndayiragije had signed two years ago.

“Tanzania Football Federation has reached into an agreement to terminate Etienne Ndayiragije’s contract as the head coach of the national team, Taifa Stars,” reads a statement on TFF website.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] “The two parties have agreed to part ways after holding consultation talks together. TFF would like to say thank you to coach Ndayiragije because of what he did and achieved with Taifa Stars. We would like to wish him the best in his future endeavours.   [/perfectpullquote]

“TFF would announce the new coach once the recruitment process is over.”

Ndayiragije was appointed as coach of  Tanzania in July 2019 and led the team to qualify for their first African Nations Championship tourney in 11 years.

Although he managed to lead Tanzania to their first CHAN in 11 years by defeating Sudan and Kenya and qualifying for a 16-team CHAN, that was not enough to convince the TFF.

In truth, Tanzania was also one of the poorest teams in CHAN 2020 but while no one expected them to beat the likes of Guinea and Zambia, failure to go past group stages for the second time was hard to take.

The Taifa Stars lost one game in Group D against Zambia, beat Namibia in their second match before being held by Guinea in a scoring draw to crash out of CHAN with four points.

Ndayiragije leaves Tanzania third in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers Group J, on four points from four games.