Portuguese coach Manuel 'Professor Neca' Gomes heads the list of favourites to take over as coach of Ghana's national team, according to local press reports. Neca was named on a shortlist of four possible candidates by the Ghana Football Association, who will interview the prospective candidates from 31 January to 3 February.

The list also includes Burkhard Ziese, who was coach when Ghana finished as runners-up at the 1992 Nations Cup finals in Senegal, and the current incumbent Emmanuel Afranie.

The fourth candidates is former African Footballer of the Year, Abdul Razak, who until recently worked in club football in Mali.

Razak served as the expert analyst for the BBC's live commentaries during the 2002 Nations Cup finals in Mali.

Ghana Football Association president Ben Koufie has made it repeatedly clear that he would prefer to hire a foreigner, thereby diminishing the chances of Afranie and Razak.

Neca coached Angola's national team from 1996 and 1998 and played twice against the Black Stars in the 1998 Nations Cup qualifiers.

Ziese lost out last year when he applied for the job, only for Ghana to appoint Yugoslav Milan Zivadinovic.

Zivadinovic was fired after just one match in charge -a surprise loss to Uganda at the start of the 2004 African Nations Cup qualifiers.

Afranie has always been considered a stand-in and has never been given a clear mandate.

He was coach of Ghana's under-20 team which finished runners-up at the 2001 World Youth Championships in Argentina.

Ghana do not have any competitive international matches until June when they play the last matches of their 2004 Nations Cup qualifying campaign. They meet Uganda in Accra on June 22 and the play away at Rwanda on July 6.