The presidium of the Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU) on Tuesday decided to start negotiations with English football manager Harry Redknapp regarding his possible work as head coach of Ukraine's national football team, the FFU's press service has reported.

At a meeting of the federation's presidium on Tuesday, Chairman of the FFU's Committee for National Teams and Coaching Board Mykhailo Fomenko reported on the situation with the selection of candidates for the post of Ukraine manager. He said that during the discussion, several coaches had proposed inviting an expert from England and that Oleh Luzhny and Yuriy Vernydub had named Redknapp. Most members of the committee supported this nomination.

Thus, the presidium decided to start negotiations with Redknapp on the issue.

"In my opinion, Redknapp will have high credibility with the national team players. He has enough experience, coaching skills and the ability to motivate players. With all the teams that Redknapp led, he very quickly improved the quality of the game and achieved significant progress. This expert is now one of the best English coaches," the FFU's press service quoted Fomenko as saying.

In June 2012, the 65-year-old manager was dismissed from Tottenham, where he had worked since 2008. He earlier coached West Ham, Portsmouth and Southampton. Redknapp was a candidate for the post of England manager after Italian Fabio Capello's retirement ahead of Euro 2012, but Roy Hodgson was appointed to the post.

The post of the head coach of the Ukrainian national football team became vacant after Oleh Blokhin agreed to take charge of FC Dynamo Kyiv. The decision on the appointment should be taken by the executive committee of the federation.

On November 19, Ukrainian football star Andriy Shevchenko refused to accept FFU President Anatoliy Konkov's proposal to take charge of Ukraine's national football team.