Coach Marsh becomes Canada's head coach Football Association needs to find realistic alternatives

Former Leeds United (England) coach Jesse Marsh, who was mentioned as a candidate for the next head coach of the Korean national soccer team, was appointed as the head coach of the Canadian national soccer team. The Korea Football Association's (KFA) plan to complete the appointment of a new coach by May has run into difficulties.

The Canadian Soccer Association officially announced the appointment of Coach Marsh on its website on the 14th (Korean time). The contract period is until the 2026 North and Central America World Cup, and Canada has decided to accompany Coach Marsh to the World Cup held in their country.

Initially, the KFA Power Strengthening Committee held a meeting on the 30th of last month and nominated four foreign leaders, including Coach Marsh, as final candidates for the new coach. The plan was to renegotiate with the next-best candidate if negotiations broke down.

A KFA official told ‘News 1’ on the 12th, “We cannot disclose anything related to the negotiations for the next national team coach. “I can inform you that no conclusion has been reached yet,” he said, adding, “There are no broken negotiations, and we are approaching negotiations carefully.” However, as a result, the appointment of Director Marsh ended in failure.

Initially, Jeong Hae-seong, chairman of the Power Strengthening Committee, said, “We plan to appoint an official director by at least May,” but it is unclear whether the existing plan will be followed as the director who put the most effort into it has been missed.

The soccer world believes that the loss of Coach Marsh is due to differences in realistic contract terms. Japanese media outlet Nikkan Sports also said, “Coach March received an annual salary of 3.5 million pounds (about 6.1 billion won) during his time at Leeds, but the maximum annual salary that KFA can pay is around 2 million pounds (about 3.4 billion won), so the difference is too big. “He pointed out.

The problem is that the conditions required by the three other foreign leaders that KFA selected as candidates, including Bruno Raz, Jesus Casas, and Senol Gunes, are not much different from those of Coach Marsh. If Coach Marsh could not be persuaded with conditions other than salary, such as the Korean national team's unique vision, the cold reality is that it would be difficult to wait for a positive result in negotiations with other coaches. For KFA, which does not have sufficient funds, the aftermath of the penalty imposed due to the disastrous failure of former coach Jurgen Klinsmann is painful. Perhaps the appointment of nominated foreign directors from the beginning was just a superficial illusion and an impossible mission. While KFA is in deep trouble, it should also be kept in mind that the June international match is quickly approaching. Korea will play the 2026 FIFA North and Central America World Cup Asia 2nd qualifier against Singapore (away) on June 6 and China (home) on the 11th. In order to find a new coach for a longer period of time, the March international match was held with Hwang Sun-hong as the temporary head coach, but the clever trick has not yet been found.  성인웹툰