But the 58-year-old Frenchman's days as coach of the Democratic Republic of Congo look numbered.

He has succeeded in guiding his new team into the quarterfinals of this year's finals, but it seems the frustrations of the job are getting to him.

"If they (the DRC federation) were to construct a proper training ground and I could fly back to France more often as my wife finds it difficult living in the DRC then I might consider staying on," Le Roy, who has only been paid 30 percent of his salary since June, told AFP.

"Also if the game is better structured then that would also be a help."

Congo possesses just one proper training pitch - paid for by Lebanese businessmen - and Le Roy revealed the national squad has only been able to train once on it.

"I have had the right to set foot on it just once," said Le Roy.

It is not the first time that he has threatened to leave.

"When we were in South Africa (for a qualifier) I seriously considered leaving the job, but I looked at the players and the way they sang in unison on the coach moved me and I decided that they were too good a bunch of fellows to dump like that," he said.

Le Roy is used to the financial dramas that riddle African football, but while he sorted out his players bonuses on the eve of the opening 2-0 victory over Togo, he himself is more phlegmatic about his own payment.

"I don't want to be the richest man in the cemetery," he said.

"It's never been my reason for being involved in football.

"Otherwise I would be working in Qatar," added Le Roy, who has also coached French clubs Paris St Germain and a traumatic period at Strasbourg, where to his amazement the fans started making monkey noises at him because of his background in African football.

With a charming house in Avignon - where he revels in the legendary summer arts festival having been brought up in Brittany amongst poets, painters and writers - Le Roy has already laid down his investment for his eventual retirement.

However as he experienced when in charge of Cameroon from 1986-88 there was no danger of him being the richest person in any graveyard - European or African.

"I quit the post in 1988 (after the African Nations Cup victory) because I wasn't paid my bonus," he said.

Le Roy, who has written a column for French daily Liberation and is working on a film script, wrote it off as a loss until it was resolved in typically African fashion.

"10 years later the President of Cameroon (Paul Biya) asked me to help out with the team at the 1998 World Cup finals in France.

"He came to the first match (v Austria in Toulouse) and I went to his hotel room. There in an envelope was my 10-year-old bonus!"

It would not mean Le Roy's love affair with Africa is over - far from it - and no doubt some of the phone calls that came in following the victory was from Africans looking for a coach capable of improving their fortunes.