Former Bermuda soccer coach Gary Darrell has all but ruled himself out of the running for a second stint in charge of the national team.

Bermuda Football Association have today advertised the posts of senior national team coach and national youth team coach, but Darrell, though tempted, said he was unlikely to apply.

Darrell said he felt the national programme had been too inactive and the domestic game was suffering as a result.

But he believed there were good local candidates to fill the national coaching post -- among them Mark Trott, Kenny Thompson and Andrew Bascome.

"Of course I would be interested (in the job) because I enjoy coaching and I have had to give it some serious thought,'' said Darrell.

"But I started a new job with the Bermuda Housing Corporation in May and it makes more sense for me to give my attention to that.'' Darrell was the most successful-ever coach of the national team. In 1992, with victories over Haiti and Antigua, he guided Bermuda to the second qualifying phase of the World Cup.

And despite a remarkable home victory over El Salvador, Bermuda were finally eliminated after a narrow defeat in Jamaica.

Darrell was modest about that achievement, but felt there were lessons that could be learned from it.

"The success I had at that time was due to a combination of things that had been happening in the two or three years before,'' said Darrell.

"The national programme had been very active and we had a bit of success and everybody wanted to be a part of it.'' But he felt that inactivity on the international stage meant that whoever the new national team coach was will face a much tougher task than he did.

"With today's players, it would be a much bigger job than it was for me,'' said Darrell. "Our senior national programme has been inactive and the local game is suffering as a result.

"You need to give players something to motivate them, to get them interested.

"But how do you get a successful national programme going when the quality of players you see on a Sunday is way below what we need to compete in the Caribbean Cup and the World Cup? "We saw that when we played against Cuba (in the 1999 Caribbean Cup) and right now I think we have slipped further back than we were then.'' And he urged the BFA to put together a more solid plan of action so the new coach would know precisely what he was letting himself in for.

"Players need motivation. I found that once the players are motivated, it's not such a hard job coaching them,'' he said.

"We need to be putting things in place now, not saying, `this is what we'd like to do, but we don't have the money'.

"It would be better to say, `we have the money to do this, x number of tours, x number of games, the Caribbean Cup and the World Cup'.

"There has to be a definite plan. Whoever gets the job needs to know what we are going to do.'' Regular international games were the only way to boost the national programme, added Darrell.

"We have done nothing since we were eliminated from the World Cup. I don't know how long it was before we were active again after the last World Cup.

"Every time we stop, we slip further back. Because of the inactivity, we are slipping further behind now. We have to restart too often. We need a long-term plan.'' Darrell felt there were viable candidates for the national team job in local soccer.

"Kenny Thompson has done a great job with the national youth team. And he has taken time to get himself prepared,'' said Darrell.

"This job might have been his aim and he has certainly done a lot of travelling and studying to prepare himself.

"Mark Trott has been involved with the association in one capacity or another for 10 or 15 years and he certainly has the experience.

"Andrew Bascome, I coached as a player and I've seen the work he's done as a coach. I have a lot of his respect for his knowledge of the game and he still has great passion for the game. I have a lot of respect for him as a coach.''