The coach of DR Congo’s national football team, Frenchman Patrice Neveu, has apologised to Congolese sportsmen, following the elimination of the country’s national team, the Leopards, from 2010 CAN and World Cup qualifiers. “Allow me to humbly present my apologies, with sincerity, to the entire Congolese people, as well as to the authorities, namely the president of the Republic who supported us all along in this campaign,” he said on Tuesday in a news conference in Kinshasa. He took responsibility of the failure of the national team to qualify but refused to resign from his post, because his contract with the Congolese Football Association runs until April 2010. The French tactician is already looking into the future and promised to put in place a project for the development of football in DRC. The country ended the combined 2010 CAN and World Cup qualifiers at third place with nine points in Group 12, behind Egypt (15 points) and Malawi (12 points). It was the 2-1 defeat at the hands of Malawi during the last round of the qualifiers which was fatal to DRC.
