Alain Giresse has confirmed he will no longer coach Senegal and has accused the country's media of conducting a "man-hunt" following their African Nations Cup exit.
Giresse, 62, led the Lions of Teranga into their final group-stage game against Algeria with the hope of reaching the quarterfinals.
However, a 2-0 defeat led to their elimination, and provoked a furious response from the Senegalese media. The press pack assailed Giresse at his postmatch news conference, which helped convince the former France international to ask the Senegalese FA not to renew his contract.
"It's finished," he told RMC. "My contract is expiring, it would have to be extended. I told my president [Augustin Senghor], who deserves credit for working in such conditions and who is trying to organise things, to not ask anything of me, because it's impossible. It would be unbearable. There is such opposition. It's become too complicated for me."
The 1984 European Championship winner, who had led the team through a tricky qualifying group including Tunisia and Egypt, added: "They went beyond the limits of decency.
"It was of such verbal violence, and it could have spilled over into physical violence. They almost threw themselves on me at the end of the press conference. It was a man-hunt. The defeat was good for them so they could finally throw themselves on me and obliterate me."