By Amaechi Agbo

Three-time Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON winning coach, Hassan Shehata has officially retired from coaching

His retirement was announced by his son, Karim Hassan Shehata on Sunday.

Hassan Shehata led Egypt’s golden generation to a record three consecutive AFCON titles in 2006, 2908 and 2010, a record still held by the Pharaohs to this day.

Since leaving in 2011, the 71-year-old had several brief stints with Zamalek, Al-Arabi, Difaa El-Jadidi, Arab Contractors and Petrojet.

Shehata was recently shortlisted to replace Javier Aguirre as the Egypt national team manager but the EFA opted for Hossam El-badri instead. According to his son, the 72-year-old also rejected many other offers and has officially retired from coaching.
Hassan Shehata

“Hassan Shehata rejected an offer to coach the Libyan national team a while ago, then he refused to train the Syrian national team recently, stressing his preference to announce his retirement from coaching after a long career,” Karim Shehata told OnSport FM.

“My father prefers to enjoy his life away from the pressures of training, and he refused in the previous period to work at Zamalek during the normalization committee led by Emad Abdelaziz.

“My father prefers to work as a consultant for the Football Association or Zamalek instead of returning to training,” he concluded.

Shehata led Egypt to three successive titles at the African Cup of Nations in 2006, 2008 and 2010, becoming the first ever, and to date, only coach to win 3 consecutive Africa Cup of Nations titles. Shehata is one of only two coaches to win the Africa Cup 3 times, along with Ghana’s Charles Gyamfi.

Egypt became the first African nation to achieve this record. As a result of this, the Egyptian team were ranked as high as 9th in the FIFA World Rankings.

In 2008, he was awarded the title of CAF Coach of the Year.

He is aged 72 and had 35 years coaching career.