By Mohammed Allie BBC Sport, Cape Town

Jomo Sono is one of the candidates to be the new South Africa coach

Applications for the vacant post as South Africa's national coach have been streaming in even though the job has not even been advertised yet.

The South African Football Association's (Safa) Chief Executive Officer Albert Mokoena confirmed that he had already received 12 applications and CV's for the job from all over the world.

The job became vacant when Safa fired Ephraim 'Shakes' Mashaba on the eve of the squad's departure to the African Cup of Nations finals in Tunisia, with his assistant April 'Styles' Phumo taking temporary charge of the team in Tunisia.

"Most of the applications are from Europe," Mokoena said.

"The Safa executive committee will be meeting in Johannesburg on 6 March to discuss, among other items on the agenda, the appointment of a new head coach for the national team.

"We will discuss these applications at that meeting."

Among the names mentioned is Frenchman Claude le Roy who coached Senegal and also led Cameroon to the Cup of Nations title in 1988.

Mokoena added that Safa envisaged appointing the new coach before their friendly against Australia in London on 30 March.

Meanwhile Jomo Sono, who has coached the team on an ad hoc basis at the 1998 Nations Cup and the 2002 World Cup has made himself available for the job on a full time basis.

Sono has said he would like to be contracted until after the 2006 World Cup finals in Germany.

There has also been growing support for Ajax Cape Town coach Gordon Igesund, the most successful coach in club football over the past decade.

Igesund has already won the league with three different teams and this season Ajax Cape Town are well-placed to win the league for the first time in their history.