Riise leaves Norway job as World Cup coaching casualties mount

STOCKHOLM : Norway coach Hege Riise is to leave her role, the Norwegian Football Federation (NFF) has announced, making her the latest manager to lose their job following the recent Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

Brazil parted ways with Swede Pia Sundhage earlier this week, while the contract of Ireland coach Vera Pauw was not renewed, despite her leading the country to the finals of their first major women's tournament.

Since the end of the tournament, 10 of the 32 nations have parted ways with their coach, and players from Spain, who won the World Cup for the first time, have said they will not play for coach Jorge Vilda again, amid the fallout from a kiss scandal involving his boss, federation chief Luis Rubiales.

Norway suffered a shock 1-0 loss to co-hosts New Zealand in their opening game and then Riise benched star winger Caroline Graham Hansen for their second group match, a goalless draw with Switzerland.

Graham Hansen's angry comments after that game grabbed the headlines in Norway and though she was reinstated for the final group game against the Philippines, which they won, they were then outclassed in a defeat to Japan in the last 16.

The subsequent evaluation of Norway's performance has seen Riise - arguably the country's greatest female player and a World Cup winner in 1995 - move into a new role in the NFF promoting the women's game.

"Through the evaluation work and in conversations with Hege Riise, we have seen that we have differing views on the role of the national team coach for this team," NFF president Lise Klaveness - herself a former international - said in a statement.

Once a superpower in the women's game, Norway now face the prospect of finding a new coach in an