Thailand's failure to defend their SEA Games men's football title will not affect Japanese Akira Nishino's future as the coach of the national senior and U23 squads, Football Association of Thailand (FAT) president Pol Gen Somyot Poompunmuang said on Friday.
The young War Elephants returned home yesterday after suffering the ignominy of being eliminated in the first round of the biennial tournament, which is restricted to U23 players.
Somyot yesterday confirmed that the FAT would extend Nishino's contract for another two years.
"Although we could not meet our target of winning the men's gold medal in the SEA Games, we don't want to make any changes to the team management," said the FAT boss.
"We want the Thai national teams to have consistent development in the short, mid and long terms as we participate in international tournaments which will happen over the next two years.
"For the sake of consistency, the FAT will extend the contract of Akira Nishino until 2021 as planned and the official signing will take place soon."
Nishino, who will now prepare the Thai team for the AFC U23 Championship finals which the Kingdom will host from Jan 8-26, yesterday apologised to the Thai people for the team's failure to win the crown for the fourth straight time in the Philippines.
"All the players did their best. They gained good experience and we will do better than this," said Nishino, referring to the Asian youth tournament, which offers three spots at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
He added: "I learned a lot about these players during the SEA Games. We were under-prepared for the tournament in the Philippines and I also did not utilise some of the players according to their strengths.
"We have to get better before the Asian U23 event. We will use the time we have to develop the consistency of these players and may even bring some new ones into the squad."