PORT-AU-PRINCE

Jean-Claude Jos­aphat has been named as head coach by the F�d�ra­tion Hal­ti­enne de Foot­ball, re­plac­ing French­man Patrice Neveu who de­part­ed af­ter just a year in the post.

Neveu presided over Haiti's qual­i­fi­ca­tion for last year's his­toric Co­pa Amer­i­ca Cen­te­nario in the Unit­ed States but then over­saw the coun­try's elim­i­na­tion from the 2018 World Cup qual­i­fiers.

In an open let­ter, Neveu claimed he had not been paid by the Fed­er­a­tion in months.

A long-time head coach of lo­cal side AS Mire­bal­ais, Jos­aphat will be the first Hait­ian to lead the na­tion­al side since Patrice Eloi in 2008.

His first task will be to over­see Haiti's out­ing in the Caribbean Cup play­off against Suri­name and hosts Trinidad and To­ba­go.

They take on the Suri­namese on Jan­u­ary 6 at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um be­fore fac­ing T&T two days lat­er at the same venue.

The win­ner of the se­ries will clash with the fifth-place side from Cen­tral Amer­i­can zone in a two-match play­off for the last berth at next year's CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup.

Haiti are cur­rent­ly in T&T prepar­ing for the CFU play­off se­ries.

CMC