Avram Grant’s fate as Chipolopolo coach will be decided in December when the Isreali’s two-year contract comes to an end, Football House has revealed.
In December 2022, Grant was handed a two-year deal as Chipolopolo coach. Last week, a leaked part of his contract revealed that it would automatically be renewed should he qualify for the team for the Africa Cup of Nations (AfCON).
With that in mind, it can be speculated that Grant’s contract triggered a further two years when he qualified for the team for 2023 AfCON in Ivory Coast [played in 2024].
“I am happy to be here; I am happy to do my job; if I was unhappy, I would leave. But I have targets that I want to achieve, first by building a good team, and if I don’t think I’ll be able to meet them, [I can leave],” Grant said last month.
However, Football Association of Zambia general secretary Rueben Kamanga has revealed that Grant’s contract expires in December, and talks of a renewal will only be tabled at the end of the back-to-back AfCON qualifiers next month.
Zambia has crucial games against Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone as they bid to make it back-to-back qualifications to Africa’s premier football showpiece.
“His contract expires at the end of this year. It was a two-year contract. It was a performance-based contract, and as we get towards the end of the year, we will sit down and look at what were the key areas where we were where we wanted the coach to achieve,” Kamanga said.
Grant a win away to another AfCON
Since his appointment, Grant has divided opinions among fans but to his credit, he managed to end the country’s eight-year wait for an AfCON qualification.
He is on the verge of another qualification for the 2025 event but he has to navigate his way past the Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone.
“We will have that conversation after we play the qualifiers, so there is a lot of time to sit down, discuss, and thereafter make a decision,” Kamanga said.
He said this when he appeared on Phoenix FM’s Let the People Talk program on Tuesday.
