COACH RICHARD TARDY’S reign in Rwanda ends this month with the French-born coach satisfied with where he has left Rwandan youth football. Tardy’s contract as the Technical Director and U-17 & U-20 coach ends on June 30 and after being denied a contract extension, the 64-year old returned home on Friday.

Tardy told local media before departing that he is happy with his performance in the last four years where he guided Rwanda U-17 to Fifa World Cup finals as well as unearthing potential youth footballers featuring in different top and second division leagues.

He said, "I came to Rwanda with a mission of helping the nation feature in an African tournament. We reached the final of the CAN U-17 finals in 2011 and even qualified for the World Cup finals.

"In Mexico, we faced different challenges that could not allow us to proceed to the next stage of the World Cup finals.” 

After the World Cup, the Junior Wasps were eliminated in the 2012 and 2014 Africa Youth Championship qualifiers losing the second round matches to Mali and Gabon respectively.

As a technical director, Tardy said he could not have managed to garner success in only one and half years. However, he is happy for having held coaching courses for 110 youth football coaches who will further help in talent identification of the U-16 players.

"Indentifying young potential players and monitoring them needs time if you are to achieve the much desired success in future. It needs at least four years for them to elevate to a pleasing standard,”

Both the U-17 and U-20 national teams will be under the caretaker of veteran coach Aloys Kanamugire while the one of these four coaches (Theonas Ndanguza Burundian Dominique Niyonzima, German Hans Michael Weis and Briton Nick) will be appointed Technical Director next month.